UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   SAN  DIEGO 


LIBRARY    ] 

SAN  DIEGO       I 

v..        -^ 


3  1822  02499  7033 


■^  BOOK  CO 


UiOA/l 


FRENCH  MEN  OF  LETTERS 

EDITED   BY 

ALEXANDER  JESSUP,  Litt.D. 


FRENCH     MEN     OF     LETTERS 
Edited  by  Alexander  Jbssup,  Litt.D. 


A  Iready  published 

MICHEL  DE  MONTAIGNE.  By 
Edward  Dowdkn,  LL.D.,  Professor  of 
English  Literature  in  the  University  of 
Dublin,  author  of  A  History  of  French 
Literature ,  etc. 

In  preparation 

HONORt  DE  BALZAC.  By  Ferdi- 
nand Brunkt:erk,  President  of  the  French 
Academy,  author  of  A  Manual  of  the  His- 
tory of  French  Literature,  etc. 

FRANCOIS  RABELAIS.  By  Arthur 
TiLLEY,  M.A.,  Fellow  and  Lecturer  of 
King's  College,  Cambridge,  author  of  The 
Literature  of  the  French  Renaissance , 
etc. 

Other  volumes  to  follow 


MICHEL  DE  MONTAIGNE 


BY 


EDWARD   DOWDEN    LL.D. 

AUTHOR    OF 

A  History  of  Frcuch  Literature 


FRENCH  MEN   OF   LETTERS 

EDITED   BY 

ALEXANDER  JESSUP,  Litt.D. 


PHILADELPHIA    AND    LONDON 
J.     B.     LIPPINCOTT     COMPANY 

MDCCCCV 


Copyright,  1905 
By  J.  B.  LippiNCOTT  Company 


Published  September,  1905 


Electrotyped  and  Printed  by 
J.  B.  Lippincott  Company,  Philadelphia.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

The  study  of  Montaigne  during  the  nineteenth 
century  falls  into  three  periods.  The  somewhat 
barren  period  of  the  Eulogies  (Alogcs),  in  the 
earlier  years  of  the  century,  was  succeeded  by  a 
period  of  research;  documents  were  discovered; 
the  facts  of  Montaigne's  life  were  carefully  inves- 
tigated; and  the  great  collection  of  Dr.  Payen, 
now  preserved  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale, 
was  brought  together.  Finally,  with  further  re- 
search, directed  especially  to  ascertaining  the  text 
of  the  Essays  (Essais)  (i 580-1 588-1 595)  in 
its  various  forms,  came  the  period  when  results 
were  co-ordinated.  In  this  third  period  the  name 
of  M.  Bonnefon  is  of  high  distinction.  No  one 
can  write  on  Montaigne  without  being  his  debtor. 
I  desire  here  to  acknowledge  my  own  debt  to 
many  of  my  predecessors,  and  in  particular  to 
M.  Bonnefon.  But  M.  Bonnefon  was  able  to 
assume  an  acquaintance  with  the  Essays  on  the 
part  of  his  readers  which  I  have  not  assumed  in 
those  for  whom  I  write;  and  accordingly  I  have 
had  to  proportion  the  parts  of  this  book  on  a 
principle  different  from  that  which  guided  Mon- 
taigne's French  biographer. 

5 


PREFACE 

All  dates  of  writings  given  are  those  of  first 
publication,  unless  otherwise  stated.  The  date, 
1 580-1 588-1 595,  refers  to  three  successive  edi- 
tions of  the  Essays.  The  titles  of  books  and  other 
writings  have  been  translated  into  English,  ex- 
cept in  cases  where  translation  would  be  mislead- 
ing; but  the  original  French  titles  follov/  the 
translated  titles  in  parentheses,  the  first  time 
each  occurs. 

I  have  endeavoured  as  far  as  possible  to  go  to 
the  sources,  but  my  chief  source  has  been  the 
Essays  themselves.  I  have  interwoven  them  with 
my  narrative  in  many  places.  The  Bibliography, 
derived  almost  exclusively  from  books  on  my  own 
shelves,  may  assure  the  reader  that  I  have  not 
written  without  much  preparatory  study.  What- 
ever its  merits  or  defects  may  be,  I  believe  it 
would  not  be  presumptuous  to  say  of  this  volume 
Montaigne's  word :  "  C'est  icy  un  Livre  de  bonne 
foy,  Lecteur," 

Edward  Dowden. 

University  of  Dublin,  December,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I — Childhood  and  Education 9 

II— The  Magistracy  and  the  Court 39 

III — Friendship  :  La  BofeTiE 69 

IV — From  La  Boetie's  Death  to  1570 104 

V — Montaigne  in  the  Tower 140 

VI — Montaigne  among  his  Books 166 

VII— Life  in  the  Chateau 204 

VIII — Writing  the  Essays 229 

IX— The  Spirit  of  the  Essays 256 

X — Montaigne  on  his  Travels 294 

XI — Montaigne  the  Mayor  :  Closing  Years    ....  323 
Bibliography  :  A  List  of  Authorities  on  Mon- 
taigne    361 

Index 371 


MICHEL  DE  MONTAIGNE 

CHAPTER    I 

CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

Montaigne  is  still  a  challenge  to  criticism.  He 
has  made  the  public  his  confidant,  and  we  seem  to 
know  him  as  well  and  ill  as  we  know  ourselves,  or 
as  we  know  human  nature.  He  comes  to  greet  us 
as  a  simple  Gascon  gentleman,  frank  and  loyal,  yet 
he  eludes  us  at  first  and  much  more  afterwards. 
We  imagine  that  we  shall  make  acquaintance  with 
an  individual,  and  we  find  by  and  by  that  we  have 
to  study  a  population  of  spirits,  moods,  humours, 
tempers.  Is  it  humanity  itself,  so  undulant  and 
various,  with  its  strength  and  its  weakness,  its  ele- 
vations and  its  mediocrities,  its  generosities  and 
its  egoism,  its  eternal  doubt,  its  eternal  credulities, 
its  sociability  and  its  central  solitude,  its  craving 
for  action,  its  longing  for  repose,  its  piety  and  its 
mockeries,  its  wisdom  and  its  humorous  follies — is 
it  humanity  itself  that  we  are  coming  to  know 
through  this  curious  exemplar  of  the  race?  How 
shall  we  draw  the  lines  which  change  at  every  mo- 
ment ?  How  shall  we  capture  Proteus,  and  induce 
him  to  sit  for  his  portrait?     And  what  should  a 

9 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

portrait  of  Proteus  resemble,  whose  unity  consists 
in  his  being  manifold? 

Was  there  an  earlier  and  a  later  Montaigne? 
Did  he  undergo  a  philosophical,  if  not  a  religious, 
conversion?  And  are  some  of  the  seeming — 
seeming,  but  perhaps  also  real — inconsistencies  of 
his  opinions  and  his  temperament  to  be  explained 
as  belonging  to  the  successive  Montaignes  of  dif- 
ferent epochs?  We  must  attempt  to  control  the 
impressions  produced  on  a  reader  of  the  Essays  by 
collating  these  with  the  facts  of  the  writer's  life, 
for  the  philosopher  was  also  a  magistrate,  a  cour- 
tier, a  traveller,  a  man  of  affairs.  Perhaps  we 
shall  find  that  the  sceptic  was  a  believer,  if  not  a 
dogmatist;  that  the  lover  of  retirement  was  not 
without  worldly  ambition ;  that  the  egoist  was  a 
citizen  possessed  by  a  sense  of  public  duty,  and 
prepared  for  a  certain  degree  of  sacrifice ;  that  the 
seeker  for  balance  and  moderation  was  capable  of 
passionate  enthusiasm ;  that  the  pursuer  of  the 
wise  mean  was  naturally  a  man  of  ardour,  if  not 
a  man  of  extremes.  To  understand  Montaigne 
aright  we  must  view  him  not  merely  as  the  occu- 
pant of  the  philosophic  tower,  with  its  chapel 
below,  and  its  Stoics,  its  Epicureans,  its  Pyrrhon- 
ists  in  the  library  above,  but  also  in  connection 
with  his  province,  his  country,  and  his  times. 

And  what  times  those  were  of  change,  of  trou- 
ble, of  terror,  of  advances,  alarms,  retreats !    The 

10 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

philosophy  of  the  Middle  Age,  under  whose  shel- 
ter or  whose  tyranny  man  so  long  found  repose, 
had  crumbled,  but  the  ruins  still  stood  and  were 
threatening.  The  first  period  of  the  Renaissance 
in  France  was  passing  into  the  second,  when  the 
high  hopes  of  dawning  science  and  of  a  return  to 
nature  were  sobered  or  touched  with  a  sense  of 
disillusion,  when  the  enthusiasms  of  classical  cul- 
ture had  somewhat  stiffened  and  hardened  into 
pedantry,  and  when  the  new  passion  for  art  and  for 
beauty  had  in  some  degree  sunk  into  the  lust  of 
luxury,  with  its  curiosities  of  artificial  refinement. 
Rabelais's  cry  of  cheer,  his  gross  laughter  in  the 
onset,  were  growing  faint.  "  Do  that  which  you 
will"  no  longer  sounded  like  a  complete  code  of 
morals  and  breviary  of  wisdom.  The  Renais- 
sance, with  its  possibilities  of  a  liberal  sanity,  was 
caught  in  the  toils  of  the  urgent  religious  conten- 
tion. A  new  dogmatism  of  new  interpreters  of 
the  Bible  was  at  odds  with  the  old  dogmatism  of 
the  Church.  Calvin,  ruler  of  Geneva  under 
Christ,  was  geometrising  a  Protestant  theology. 
On  the  other  side  the  bands  arrayed  on  behalf  of 
the  counter-Reformation  were  accomplishing 
themselves  in  the  drill  of  Loyola  and  his  tactics  of 
spiritual  warfare.  The  Council  of  Trent  was  for- 
mulating the  inspirations  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
chapter  and  section.  Unhappy  France  must  needs 
have  her  wars  of  religion,  illustrated  by  perfidies, 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

butcheries,  rapes,  pillage,  conflagration.  The  zeal 
of  God's  House  culminated — even  if  only  by  ac- 
cident— in  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre.  Was 
it  a  deliberate  design?  Was  it  the  chance-medley 
of  religious  fury?  "  Everywhere,"  wrote  Father 
Panicarola  in  great  joy  to  Rome,  "  we  have  seen 
rivers  of  blood,  and  mountains  of  dead  bodies." 
A  medal,  struck  by  Pope  Gregory  XIII.,  com- 
memorated the  glorious  triumph  of  the  faith. 
"  He  who  in  our  days,"  says  Montaigne,  "  is  but  a 
parricide  and  a  sacrilegious  person  is  a  man  of 
worth  and  of  honour." 

At  such  a  time  to  be  temperate,  loyal,  truthful, 
tolerant,  humane  was  not  a  little.  Not  being  able 
to  govern  events,  a  man  might  find  some  gain  in 
governing  himself.  To  plead  for  justice,  probity, 
charity,  to  honour  the  wise  of  past  ages,  to  cele- 
brate the  joy  of  friendship,  to  set  forth  the  princi- 
ples of  a  sane  education,  to  study  the  springs  of 
good  and  evil  in  human  nature,  to  observe,  reflect, 
and  grow  wise,  to  leave  for  future  generations  a 
treasury  of  good  sense,  good  temper,  good  hu- 
mour, was  perhaps  to  do  much.  The  tower  of 
Montaigne  might  seem  a  pharos  of  illumination, 
as  we  look  back  upon  it,  in  the  midst  of  this  wide 
welter  of  passions,  crimes,  and  follies.  There  he 
might  bring  together  a  heritage  for  the  better 
France  of  coming  years.  "  I  call  Montaigne," 
says  Sainte-Beuve,  in  the  closing  words  of  one  of 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

his  studies,  "  the  wisest  Frenchman  that  ever 
lived."  His  wisdom  has  been  an  influence  making 
for  sanity  during  upwards  of  three  centuries. 

The  wisest  of  men,  as  Montaigne  was  aware, 
may  have  some  grains  of  folly  in  his  composition. 
It  was  a  pardonable  infirmity  that  he  wished  his 
family  to  be  considered  more  honourable  from  a 
social  point  of  view  than  the  facts  warranted. 
When  Joseph  Scaliger  described  the  father  of 
Montaigne  as  a  vendor  of  herring,  he  perverted 
the  truth  only  by  the  error  of  one  generation.  The 
ancestry  of  the  essayist  can  be  traced  back  to  the 
early  years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  his  great 
grandfather  Ramon  Eyquem  (or  Ayquem)  was  a 
considerable  merchant  in  the  city  of  Bordeaux. 
He  exported  wines  and  sold  pastel  (woad)  and 
dried  fish.  Heir  to  his  maternal  uncle  Ramon  de 
Gaujac,  and  married  to  an  heiress,  Isabeau  de 
Ferraignes,  Ramon  increased  in  worldly  goods 
through  his  own  industry,  and  added  field  to  field 
and  house  to  house.  In  1477,  when  he  was  half- 
way betw'een  seventy  and  eighty  years  old,  he  pur- 
chased the  noble  mansion  and  property  of  Mon- 
taigne and  Belbeys,  "  with  the  vines,  woods,  lands, 
fields,  and  mills,  thereto  pertaining" — a  purchase 
made  rather  in  the  spirit  of  the  founder  of  a  fam- 
ily than  through  any  personal  ambition  or  vanity. 
The  house  stood  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Dor- 

13 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

dogne,  in  the  department  of  that  name,  upon  an 
elevation  not  remote  from  the  Lidoire,  which 
winds  in  a  great  curve  among  its  sunny  meadows 
and  below  its  grassy  heights.  From  the  terrace  a 
wide  prospect,  rich  in  rural  incidents,  is  visible. 
The  country  breathes  an  air  of  tranquillity,  and 
across  the  tranquil  spaces  comes  floating  now  and 
again  the  sound  of  a  bell  from  some  distant 
church-spire.  The  overlord  to  whom  the  Seigneur 
de  Montaigne  did  homage  was  the  Archbishop  of 
Bordeaux.  A  year  after  his  purchase,  just  as  he 
was  preparing  to  set  forth  on  a  pilgrimage  to  St. 
James  of  Compostella  (ii  June,  1478),  Ramon 
Eyquem  died. 

His  son,  Grimon,  born  about  1450,  continued 
to  maintain  the  business  in  the  Rue  de  la  Rousselle, 
and  extended  it  in  various  directions.  He  became 
a  person  of  no  small  importance  in  Bordeaux,  oc- 
cupying municipal  positions  of  distinction,  which 
serve  as  evidences  of  a  public  esteem  based  upon  a 
knowledge  of  his  integrity  of  character  and 
soundness  of  judgment.  And  again  a  marriage 
with  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  merchant,  Grimon 
du  Four,  added  to  the  family  dignity  and  pros- 
perity. In  1 5 18  Grimon  Eyquem  died  at  the  age 
of  sixty-nine,  leaving  behind  him  four  sons  and 
two  daughters.  The  eldest  of  these  sons  was  the 
father  of  Michel  de  Montaigne,  the  Essayist. 

So  far,  in  tracing  Montaigne's  ancestry,  we 
14 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

have  been  among  members  of  the  prosperous  mid- 
dle class.  Energy,  steadfastness,  good  sense  seem 
to  have  been  virtues  of  the  race.  Our  Montaigne, 
of  the  legend — a  legend  in  the  formation  of 
which  he  himself  assisted — is  indolent  and  idle; 
he  was,  in  fact,  a  man  of  energy  like  his  ancestors ; 
even  in  his  retirement  his  brain  at  least  was  inde- 
fatigably  agile.  His  retirement  was,  indeed,  it- 
self an  act  of  energetic  decision;  and  in  his  tower, 
as  year  succeeded  year,  he  was  steadfast,  amid  all 
the  vicissitudes  of  his  thoughts  and  what  he  might 
style  his  reveries  or  whimsies,  steadfast  in  accom- 
plishing a  considerable  task,  which  was — as  our 
tasks  should  be — a  great  pleasure.  The  good 
sense  of  a  successful  merchant,  mingling  with 
other  and  widely  different  qualities,  is  elevated  by 
Montaigne  into  the  good  sense  of  a  moralist  and 
a  philosopher.* 

With  Montaigne's  father,  Pierre  Eyquem,  we 
pass  from  bourgeois  surroundings  to  a  wider  field 
of  experience  and  adventure.  In  him  we  find  not 
merely  the  middle-class  steadfastness,  but  a  cer- 
tain originality  of  character  and  of  ideas.  Pierre, 
the  eldest  child  of  Grimon  Eyquem,  was  born  in 
1495  ^t  Montaigne — the  only  Eyquem  born  or 

*  Montaigne's  notion  that  his  ancestry  was  in  part  of 
EngHsh  origin  cannot  be  established  as  true,  but  some  con- 
nections of  the  kind  supposed  may  have  been  formed  during 
the  English  occupation  of  Guyenne. 

15 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

buried  there,  however  it  may  have  pleased  the  Es- 
sayist to  alhide  to  the  birthplace  or  the  tombs  of 
his  ancestors.  On  December  30,  15 19,  Pierre  did 
homage  for  his  estates,  presented  his  pair  of  white 
gloves,  and  received  the  Archbishop's  gracious 
embrace.  Montaigne,  who  reverenced  his  father, 
has  represented  him  as  deficient  in  the  gifts  of 
education;  but,  though  afterwards  he  may  have 
forgotten  his  classics,  Latin  verses  written  by 
Pierre  were  printed  when  he  was  a  lad  of  seven- 
teen years  of  age,  and  at  a  later  time  he  was  famil- 
iar with  Italian  and  Spanish.  His  younger  broth- 
ers, Pierre  the  younger,  a  churchman,  and  Ray- 
mond, advocate  and  councillor,  were  men  of 
distinguished  culture.  It  was  a  time  when  the 
Italian  wars  opened  up  brilliant  possibilities  for 
an  adventurous  spirit.  Pierre,  though  low  of 
stature,  was  well-shaped,  full  of  force  and  dex- 
terity, dark-complexioned,  pleasant  to  look  on,  a 
lover  of  manly  exercises.  He  chose  to  open  his 
oyster,  the  world,  with  a  sword  rather  than  a  pen. 
France  had  need  of  gallant  service  from  her  sons 
both  before  and  after  the  disastrous  battle  of 
Pavia.  We  do  not  know  the  precise  date  at  which 
Pierre  Eyquem's  sieges,  surprises,  encounters,  re- 
treats began,  but  we  know  that  he  was  in  Italy 
during  many  years  and  that  by  January,  1528,  he 
had  returned  to  France.  His  son  assures  us  that 
he  kept  a  journal  of  the  incidents  and  events  of 

16 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

his  life  as  a  soldier;  unhappily  no  such  manu- 
script is  now  known  to  be  in  existence.  He 
brought  back  from  Italy  a  love  of  culture,  a  faith 
in  certain  new  ideas,  and  a  profound  reverence — 
at  which  his  son  smiles,  but  in  no  unkindly  spirit 
— for  men  of  learning,  "  sacred  persons",  whose 
sentences  he  regarded  as  oracles,  and  to  whom  his 
hospitable  doors  were  ever  open. 

On  his  way  home  from  Italy  Pierre  Eyquem, 
whose  adventurous  life  had  included  no  dishon- 
orable love-adventure,  was  married  at  the  age 
of  thirty-three  (15  January,  1528)  to  Antoinette 
de  Louppes,  daughter  of  Pierre  de  Louppes,  a 
wealthy  merchant  of  Toulouse.  The  original 
name  of  the  family  was  Lopes;  it  came  from 
Villanova,  near  Toledo,  and  there  is  little  doubt 
that  its  members,  settled  in  Toulouse  and  Bor- 
deaux as  merchants  and  physicians,  were  among 
the  expelled  Jews,  who  had  embraced  a  real  or  a 
professed  Christian  faith  under  the  stress  of  per- 
secution— the  "  New  Christians",  as  they  were 
commonly  designated.  Thus  a  Spanish  and  a 
Jewish  strain  qualified  the  Gascon  blood  of  Mon- 
taigne. It  was  not  without  an  influence  on  his 
mind  that  diversity  should  be  his  birthright.  His 
temper  could  not  but  be  affected  by  the  fact  that 
the  religious  differences  of  the  time  existed  in  his 
own  family,  among  those  whom  he  esteemed  and 
loved.  His  father  was  a  devout  member  of  the 
2  17 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Roman  Communion.  His  mother  not  improbably 
adhered  to  the  Reformed  Faith,  adopted  by  her 
father  and  her  uncle.  That  Thomas,  Seigneur  de 
Beauregard,  one  of  his  brothers,  and  Jeanne,  his 
sister,  who  married  the  councillor  Richard  de  Les- 
tonnac,  were  Protestants  is  certain ;  perhaps  a 
second  sister  held  the  same  creed.  The  wars  of 
religion  were  brought,  in  seriousness  but  without 
excessive  bitterness,  into  the  domestic  circle.  The 
facts  of  his  own  household  cannot  but  have  stim- 
ulated— stimulated  and  also  checked — a  critical 
spirit  in  matters  of  religion.  Tolerance  may  have 
been  accepted  as  a  part  of  household  piety.  And 
perhaps  the  heresy  of  a  brother  and  a  sister  may 
have  served  to  point  out  his  own  special  role  of 
theological  originality,  as  something  other  than 
heresy,  a  special  kind  of  orthodoxy,  a  transcen- 
dental faith,  which  might  act  as  a  happy  substitute 
for  scepticism,  an  originality  of  docility  and  sub- 
mission which  allowed  him  to  pursue  his  own 
ideas  in  a  less  exalted  region  of  the  air  with  singu- 
lar independence.  How  to  be  orthodox  with  the 
utmost  economy  of  force  was  a  problem  skilfully 
solved  by  Montaigne. 

While  attached  to  his  seigneurial  property  of 
Montaigne,  Pierre  Eyquem  often  occupied  his 
house  in  the  Rue  de  Rousselle ;  though  the  heredi- 
tary smell  of  dried  fish  may  now  have  grown  faint, 
he  was  merchant  enough  to  sell  in  Bordeaux  the 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

wine  of  his  own  vineyards.  His  fellow  citizens 
recognised  his  integrity,  his  disinterestedness,  and 
his  vigour  in  public  affairs,  and  he  occupied  suc- 
cessively all  the  chief  municipal  offices  from  jurat 
(town -councillor)  to  sub -mayor  (1536)  and 
mayor  (1554  to  1556).  Pierre  Eyquem  accepted 
his  public  duties  in  the  spirit  of  serious  diligence, 
"  I  very  well  remember  when  a  boy,"  writes  Mon- 
taigne, "  to  have  seen  him  in  his  old  age  cruelly 
tormented  in  mind  about  these  vexing  public  af- 
fairs, forgetting  the  gentle  aspect  (le  doulx  air) 
of  his  own  house,  to  which  the  infirmity  of  his 
years  had  for  long  previously  attached  him,  the 
management  of  his  concerns,  and  his  health ;  de- 
spising his  life,  which  he  thought  to  lose,  engaged 
as  he  was,  on  behalf  of  others,  upon  long  and 
painful  journeys.* 

On  one  of  these  journeys  to  Paris,  the  object 
of  which  was  the  recovery  of  certain  forfeited 
privileges  of  the  citizens  of  Bordeaux,  Pierre  took 
as  his  eloquent  assistants  a  number  of  pipes  of  the 
country's  wine,  v/hich  he  distributed  among  those 
in  powder  with  the  happiest  result.  A  man  of  lim- 
ited education  but  with  an  ardent  faith  in  learn- 
ing, he  occupied  himself  much  with  the  advance- 
ment of  education  in  the  city,  especially  in  con- 
nection   with    the    recently    founded    College   of 

*  Essays,  III,  10. 
19 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Guyenne  (1533).  Under  the  principalship  of  the 
distinguished  scholar,  Andre  de  Gouvea,  a  "  new 
Christian"  of  Portuguese  origin,  it  became  the 
best  school  in  France;  and  it  was  Pierre,  as  sub- 
mayor,  who  had  handed  to  Gouvea  (1536)  his 
letters  of  naturalisation.  "  Such  was  he,"  his  son 
goes  on,  "  and  this  humour  of  his  proceeded  from 
a  great  goodness  of  nature;  never  was  there  a 
spirit  more  charitable  or  more  devoted  to  the  peo- 
ple (poptdaire)." 

Bordeaux  was  Pierre's  field  of  public  action; 
but  Montaigne,  with  its  "doidx  air",  was  the 
home  of  his  intimate  affection.  He  was  con- 
stantly busy  altering,  improving,  adding  to  his 
cherished  possession : 

"  My  father  took  a  delight  in  building  at  Montaigne, 
where  he  was  born ;  and  in  all  the  ordering  of  domestic 
affairs  I  love  to  follow  his  example  and  rules,  and  I  would 
engage  those  who  succeed  me  to  do  the  same  as  far  as  I 
am  able.  Could  I  do  better  for  him,  I  would ;  I  have  my 
pride  in  knowing  that  his  will  still  operates  and  acts 
through  me.  God  forbid  that  through  my  handling  I 
should  let  slip  any  shadow  of  life  which  I  could  render  to 
so  good  a  father !  When  I  have  concerned  myself  to  finish 
some  old  fragment  of  wall,  or  to  repair  some  piece  of  ill- 
constructed  building,  truly  it  has  been  more  out  of  respect 
for  his  design  than  for  any  satisfaction  of  rny  own."  * 

At  the  close  of  1554  Pierre  Eyquem  obtained 
permission  from  his  suzerain,  the  Archbishop,  to 

*  Essays,  III,  9. 
20 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

rebuild  the  chateau,  and  render  it  sufficiently 
strong  to  resist  any  sudden  assault,  such  as  might 
not  improbably  be  attempted  in  that  time  of  social 
and  political  disturbance.  There  was  a  rare  com- 
bination of  great  energy  with  great  gentleness  in 
Pierre's  character;  in  his  bearing  a  sweet  gravity 
and  modesty  were  apparent ;  he  was  "  mon- 
strously punctual"  in  keeping  his  word.  In  old 
age  he  still  remained  active.  "  I  have  seen  him," 
writes  his  son,  "  when  three-score  make  scorn  of 
our  agility,  throw  himself  in  his  furred  gown  on 
horseback,  make  the  circuit  of  the  table  on  his 
thumb;  and  seldom  would  he  mount  to  his  cham- 
ber without  taking  three  or  four  stairs  at  a 
time."  * 

Montaigne's  father  died,  i8  June,  1568,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-two.  His  memory  remained  as 
one  of  his  son's  most  precious  possessions.  He 
preserved  the  long  wands  or  rods  which  the  old 
man  was  accustomed  to  carry  in  his  walks;  he 
dressed  in  black  or  white  because  to  do  so  was  his 
father's  habit;  and  when  the  old  cloak  worn  by 
Pierre  was  thrown  about  him  as  he  rode,  "  I 
seem,"  he  says,  with  an  outbreak  of  manly  tender- 
ness, "  to  wrap  myself  up  in  my  father."  The 
widowed  mother  of  Montaigne  for  long  survived 
her  husband,  and  survived  also,  by  several  years, 

*  Essays,  II,  2. 
21 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

her  son,  the  Essayist.  She  died,  23  July,  1601,  at 
a  great  old  age,  seventy-three  years  from  the  date 
of  her  marriage.  In  her  will  she  speaks  with  an 
honest  pride  of  her  prudent  and  successful  domes- 
tic economy. 

"  I  was  born  between  eleven  o'clock  and  noon- 
tide, on  the  last  day  of  February,  1533,  as  we 
reckon  at  present,  beginning  the  year  with  Jan- 
uary." Thus,  with  all  precision,  Montaigne  re- 
cords the  fact.  The  place  of  his  birth  was  the 
noble  house  of  Montaigne.  He  was  the  third 
child  of  his  parents,  but  of  those  who  survived  the 
eldest;  the  earlier  children  had  probably  died  in 
their  infancy.*  Following  a  practice  not  infre- 
quently adopted,  Pierre  Eyquem  chose  as  godpar- 
ents of  the  boy  persons  of  the  humblest  rank,  and 
from  the  name  of  an  unknown  godfather  it  is  sup- 
posed that  the  Christian  name — Michel — was  de- 
rived, f  His  father's  wish  was  to  attach  his  son 
to  the  common  people,  to  make  him  have  a  care 
rather,  as  Montaigne  puts  it,  "  for  him  who 
stretches  his  arms  to  me  than  for  him  who  turns 
his  back  upon  me."  With  the  same  intention,  and 
also  in  the  hope  of  making  the  boy  hardy,  Pierre 

*  The  statement  here  made  gives  the  conclusion  generally 
accepted,  after  much  discussion. 

t  M.  Bonnefon  notices  that  Montesquieu  in  Guyenne  and 
Buffon  in  Bourgogne  were  held  at  the  baptismal  font  by 
poor  folk. 

22 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

sent  the  infant  from  the  cradle  to  a  poor  village 
on  his  estate — conjectured  to  be  Papessus — to  be 
nursed  by  a  peasant,  and  reared  with  the  utmost 
simplicity.  The  result  of  such  an  experiment 
might  have  been  to  give  Montaigne  a  distaste  for 
humble  ways  of  living;  but,  as  a  fact,  the  end 
answered  his  father's  expectations,  and  Mon- 
taigne all  through  his  writings  shows  a  compas- 
sionate interest  in  the  life  of  the  peasantry  and  a 
respect  for  their  manly  virtue.  He  remained 
with  his  foster-mother  for  some  time  after  he 
had  been  weaned,  and  acquired  a  hardiness  in 
the  matter  of  diet  which  was  of  service  to  him 
in  later  years. 

Pierre  Eyquem  was  a  man  accessible  to  new 
ideas  and  disposed  to  put  such  ideas  into  practice. 
His  son  gives  an  account  of  a  project  conceived  by 
him  of  a  central  agency  or  bureau  of  exchange  in 
every  great  city,  where  wants  could  be  registered 
and  supplied,  and  by  means  of  which  situations 
could  be  sought  and  filled.  His  ideas  on  education 
were  not  only  of  a  novel  kind,  but,  in  the  instance 
of  little  Michel,  were  carried  into  effect.  At  a 
time  when  paternal  authority  was  commonly  exer- 
cised with  harshness,  Pierre  Eyquem  tried  the 
discipline  of  gentleness.  At  a  time  when  the  ar- 
gument of  the  rod  determined  all  differences  be- 
tween father  and  son,  he  hung  up  the  rod — which 
was  only  to  be  employed  on  the  rarest  occasions, 

23 


MICHEL   DE    MONTAIGNE 

and  with  a  sparing  hand — and  chose  to  rule  by 
love.  In  Montaigne's  own  opinion  there  are  only 
two  faults  which  ought  to  be  sternly  checked  and, 
if  possible,  uprooted  in  childhood — lying  and  ob- 
stinacy; these,  if  once  permitted  to  grow  into 
habits,  become,  he  believed,  irreclaimable  vices. 
The  offence  of  lying,  the  greater  vice  of  the  two, 
he  treats  less  as  a  breach  of  divine  law  than  as 
treason  against  humanity.  Man  is  a  sociable 
being,  and  falsehood  is  an  evasion  of  the  duty 
and  the  delight  of  frank  communication.  "  How 
much  less  sociable,"  he  exclaims,  "  is  false  speak- 
ing than  silence."  Yet  every  little  fault,  spring- 
ing up  even  in  infancy,  Montaigne  felt,  has  in  it 
a  threat  for  future  years.  The  petty  cruelties  of 
a  boy  are  not  to  be  encouraged  by  a  mother  as 
tokens  of  a  manly  temper.  A  father  must  not 
allow  his  son  to  domineer  over  a  peasant  or  a 
servant,  nor  to  overreach  a  playfellow  by  some 
dishonourable  ingenuity.  For  his  own  part,  Mon- 
taigne had  the  happiness  to  be  brought  up  to  a 
plain,  straightforward  way  of  dealing  with  oth- 
ers; the  habits  of  openness  and  integrity  became 
an  instinctive  part  of  his  later  life. 

Pierre  Eyquem  had  consulted  those  sacred 
persons,  men  of  learning,  whose  acquaintance  he 
had  sought  in  Italy,  and  afterw.ards  at  Mon- 
taigne, and  they  had  advised  him  to  train  up  a 
child  in  all  sweetness  and  liberty,  without  rigour 

24 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

or  constraint,  S(^  that  the  love  of  knowledge  might 
be  a  spontaneous  and  happy  blossoming  of  the  fac- 
ulties. It  is  almost  a  symbol  of  the  whole  process 
that  every  morning  the  boy  was  lifted  out  of  the 
depth  of  a  child's  sleep  by  no  rude  hand,  but 
gently,  at  the  invitation  of  some  musical  instru- 
ment ;  the  tender  cells  of  the  brain  were  not  to  be 
shattered  and  the  morning  spoilt,  but  a  harmoni- 
ous mood  should  meet  the  harmony  of  the  widen- 
ing light. 

His  advisers  had  assured  Montaigne's  good 
father  that  the  time  spent  in  laboriously  learning 
the  tongues  was  the  sole  cause  why  the  modems 
do  not  obtain  the  grandeur  of  soul  and  perfection 
of  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans. 
"  I  do  not,  however,"  comments  the  Essayist, 
smiling  a  little  at  his  father's  simplicity,  "  believe 
that  to  be  the  only  cause." 

"  While  I  was  still  at  nurse" — so  Montaigne  recounts  the 
process  of  the  experiment  in  education — "  and  before  my 
tongue  was  loosed  in  speech,  he  gave  me  in  charge  to  a 
German  [probably  Horstanus],  who  since  died  a  famous 
physician  in  France,  wholly  ignorant  of  our  language  and 
very  well  versed  in  Latin.  This  man,  whom  he  had  sent 
for  expressly,  and  who  was  very  highly  paid,  had  me  con- 
tinually in  his  arms.  He  had  with  him  two  others,  less 
learned,  to  attend  upon  me,  and  relieve  the  first.  They 
spoke  to  me  in  no  other  language  than  Latin.  As  to  the 
rest  of  the  household,  it  was  an  inviolable  rule  that  neither 
my  father  himself,  nor  my  mother,  nor  valet,  nor  chamber- 
maid should  utter  anything  in  my  company  but  such  Latin 

25 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

words  as  each  had  learnt  in  order  to  prattle  with  me. 
The  gain  to  all  of  them  was  wonderful ;  my  father  and 
my  mother  learnt  enough  Latin  to  understand  it,  and  to 
use  it  themselves  when  there  was  need,  as  also  did  the 
servants  who  chiefly  waited  upon  me.  In  short,  we  latin- 
ised at  such  a  rate  that  it  overflowed  upon  our  villages  all 
round,  where  there  still  survive,  having  taken  root  through 
custom,  many  Latin  terms  for  workmen  and  their  tools. 
As  for  myself,  I  was  over  six  years  old  before  I  understood 
more  of  French  or  Perigordin  than  I  did  of  Arabic;  and 
without  art,  without  book,  without  grammar  or  rule,  with- 
out the  rod  and  without  a  tear,  I  had  learnt  Latin  quite  as 
pure  as  my  master's,  for  I  had  not  the  means  of  mingling 
or  corrupting  it.  If  a  theme  was  given  me,  as  is  the  way 
in  schools,  they  gave  it  to  others  in  French,  but  with  me  it 
had  to  be  given  in  bad  Latin  to  be  turned  into  good.  .  .  . 
As  to  Greek,  of  which  I  have  almost  no  understanding,  my 
father  purposed  to  have  it  taught  me  by  art,  but  in  a  new 
fashion,  by  way  of  sport  and  recreative  exercise ;  we  rolled 
about  our  declensions,  like  those,  who,  with  games  upon  a 
checker-board,   learn  arithmetic  and  geometry."  * 

That  the  result  of  his  father's  method  did  not 
in  the  end  quite  answer  his  expectations  was 
caused,  Montaigne  supposes,  partly  by  the  fact 
that  it  was  not  persisted  in  for  a  sufficiently  long 
time,  partly  by  the  fact  that  the  scholar  was  nat- 
urally "heavy,  soft,  and  lethargic."  Sound  of 
constitution  he  was;  reasonably  good-natured 
and  tractable ;  but  he  could  not  be  roused  even  to 
play.  And  yet  underneath  this  heavy  complex- 
ion he  nourished  bold  imaginings  and  opinions 

*  Essays,  I,  25. 
26 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

beyond  his  years.  "  What  I  saw,"  he  says,  "  I 
saw  aright";  but  the  slow-witted  boy  seemed  to 
advance  no  further  than  he  was  led ;  and,  to  make 
matters  worse,  he  suffered  from  an  incredible  de- 
fect of  memory.  Roger  Ascham,  a  teacher  of  ex- 
perience, has  observed  that  tough  and  tardy  wits 
are  not  the  worst. 

The  judgment  of  Pierre  Eyquem's  friends  and 
neighbours  was  adverse  to  his  experiment  in  edu- 
cation, and  the  good  man  yielded  to  public  opin- 
ion. At  the  age  of  six  years  Michel  was  sent  to 
the  College  of  Guyenne,  then  a  celebrated  school, 
presided  over  by  distinguished  teachers.  The  prin- 
cipal, Andre  de  Gouvea,  had  come  from  the  Col- 
lege of  Sainte-Barbe  in  Paris,  in  the  year  1534, 
bringing  with  him  a  staff  of  eminent  professors. 
It  was  essentially  a  grammar  school,  having  as  its 
special,  though  not  its  exclusive,  object  the  study 
of  Latin.  The  course  extended  over  seven  years 
or  upwards,  beginning  with  the  elements  of  gram- 
mar, and  rising  at  the  close  to  the  study  of  ancient 
history  and  that  of  rhetoric,  with  declamations  in 
the  Latin  tongue.  Greek  was  reserved  for  schol- 
ars of  the  more  advanced  classes.  Cicero,  and 
again  Cicero,  was  for  all  scholars  the  staple  com- 
modity, after  the  milk  for  babes  had  been  thor- 
oughly assimilated.  But  this  perpetual  Cicero- 
ising  was  tempered  by  plays  of  Terence,  and  by 
portions  of  Ovid  and  Virgil.     In  consideration  of 

27 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

his  exceptional  knowledge  of  Latin,  Montaigne 
was  at  once  placed  in  a  class  above  that  which  his 
age  would  naturally  indicate  as  suitable.  Several 
of  his  masters  afterwards  assured  him  that,  per- 
ceiving Latin  to  come  to  his  lips  as  a  child  with 
perfect  readiness,  they,  who  could  not  but  pick 
and  choose  their  words,  were  timid  of  entering 
into  discourse  with  him. 

Looking  back  from  his  later  years  upon  his 
course  of  training,  Montaigne  hardly  does  jus- 
tice to  a  system  to  which  he  probably  owed  more 
than  he  was  aware.  He  declares  that  his  Latin 
grew  corrupt  at  school,  and  that,  after  seven  years 
of  study,  he  brought  with  him  from  the  college  no 
kind  of  advantage  of  which  he  could  honestly 
boast.  Too  much  time,  he  thought,  was  spent 
over  words ;  the  memory  was  overburdened ;  the 
judgment  was  exercised  little,  or  not  at  all.  But, 
in  truth,  few  other  things  are  so  important  to  us 
as  words — the  tools  we  have  to  handle  during  our 
entire  lifetime — and  the  judgment  can  be  little 
exercised  until  the  mind,  putting  to  good  use  the 
memory,  has  possessed  itself  of  a  certain  body  of 
facts,  on  which  the  judgment  may  go  to  work. 
The  great  defect  of  Montaigne's  education  was 
its  neglect  of  scientific  knowledge  and  scientific 
method.  His  writings  might  have  lost  some- 
thing, but  w^ould  have  gained  more,  if  his  sinu- 
osities of  meditation  had  sometimes  only  served 

28 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

to  disguise  the  processes  of  exact  and  progressive 
thought. 

Beside  the  teachers  of  the  regular  school  hours, 
private  tutors,  chosen  from  among  those  teachers 
or  from  outside  the  college,  were  secured  for 
Michel  by  the  affectionate  care  of  his  father. 
Pierre  Eyquem  insisted  upon  the  knowledge  of 
Greek  as  a  condition  of  their  fitness.*  Among 
these  were  Nicolas  Grouchy,  author  of  a  trea- 
tise, De  Comitiis  Romanorum;  Guillaume  Gue- 
rente,  who  wrote  a  commentary  upon  Aristotle; 
the  great  Scottish  poet  and  scholar,  George 
Buchanan ;  and  at  a  considerably  later  time,  Marc 
Antoine  Muret,  "  whom  both  France  and  Italy," 
says  Montaigne,  ''  have  acknowledged  to  be  the 
best  orator  of  his  time."  Buchanan  had  fled  from 
Scotland,  where  his  mockery  of  the  Franciscans 
had  excited  hostility  against  him.  In  Bordeaux 
his  satirical  spirit  again  brought  him  into  trouble, 
— now  with  the  Dominicans — and  he  is  said  to 
have  sought  and  found  shelter  for  a  time  in  Pierre 
Eyquem's  chateau  of  Montaigne.  The  influence 
of  Muret,  still  a  youth,  but  one  of  extraordinary 

*  Montaigne's  sister,  Mme.  de  Lestonnac,  it  is  related, 
was  able  to  follow  the  Greek  of  a  councillor  of  Bordeaux, 
who  hoped  to  convey  secretly,  in  that  learned  tongue,  some 
unworthy  advice  to  her  husband ;  she  rose  to  the  occasion, 
and  scolded  the  ill  adviser  out  of  her  doors  with  Homeric 
vituperation. 

29 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

and  brilliant  attainments,  may  have  tended  to  give 
some  of  that  license  to  Montaigne's  tongue  which 
he  indulges,  and  tries  to  justify,  in  the  Essays. 
Buchanan,  Guerente,  and  Muret  were  authors  of 
Latin  tragedies,  and  with  the  approval  of  Gouvea, 
tliese  were  presented  "  with  great  dignity"  by  the 
students.  "  I  had  no  little  assurance  of  counte- 
nance," writes  Montaigne,  "  and  flexibility  of 
voice  and  gesture  in  adapting  myself  to  any  dra- 
matic part."  By  the  time  that  he  was  twelve  years 
old,  he  had  played  the  leading  parts  in  many  of 
these  tragedies,  and  was  looked  upon  as  one  of 
the  best  actors.  Montaigne's  awakening  to  liter- 
ature came  in  his  seventh  or  eighth  year,  and,  as 
so  often  happens,  through  no  regular  instruction, 
but  by  a  private  and  solitary  experience,  and 
almost  by  a  happy  accident.  The  story  is  best 
related  in  his  own  words  : 

"  The  first  taste  I  had  for  books  came  to  me  from  the 
pleasure  I  found  in  the  fables  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses; 
for,  being  about  seven  or  eight  years  old,  I  withdrew  my- 
self from  every  pleasure  in  order  to  read  them;  so  much 
the  more  because  this  was  my  mother  tongue,  and  the  book 
the  easiest  I  had  known,  and  the  best  suited  by  its  matter 
to  my  tender  age.  For  the  Lancelots  of  the  Lake,  the 
Amadis,  the  Huons  of  Bordeaux,  and  such  farrago  of 
books,  in  which  childhood  finds  diversion,  I  had  never 
heard  even  their  names — nor  do  I  yet  know  their  substance 
— so  exact  was  my  discipline !  I  thereupon  grew  more 
indifferent  to  the  study  of  my  prescribed  tasks ;  and  uncom- 
monly lucky  it  was  that  I  had  to  do  with  a  tutor  of  in- 

30 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

telligence,  who  knew  how  to  connive  cleverly  at  this  de- 
bauch of  mine,  and  at  others  like  it ;  for  thus  at  full  speed 
I  ran  through  Virgil's  /Eneid,  and  then  Terence,  and  then 
Plautus,  and  some  Italian  comedies,  allured  ever  by  the 
sweetness  of  the  subject.  .  .  .  He  bore  himself  discreetly, 
seeming  to  take  no  notice ;  he  whetted  my  appetite,  per- 
mitting me  to  devour  those  books  only  on  the  sly,  and 
keeping  me  in  an  easy  way  to  the  other  regular  studies."  * 

But  for  this  indulgent  tutor  Montaigne  declares 
that  he  might  have  carried  away  from  school,  as 
most  young  gentlemen  do,  nothing  save  a  hatred 
of  books. 

Montaigne's  views  on  education  are  set  forth 
in  the  twenty-fifth  essay  of  the  First  Book.  If 
any  one  would  make  acquaintance  not  with  the 
sceptic  but  with  the  ardent  believer,  let  him  read 
this  essay.  It  is  the  utterance  of  no  weary 
doubter,  reduced  to  universal  indifference,  but  of 
a  man  of  enthusiastic  and  joyous  faith.  It  rises 
in  some  passages  to  a  noble,  virile  eloquence,  be- 
coming indeed  a  hymn — but  a  hymn  touched  at 
times  with  humour — in  honour  of  a  wise  and 
happy  sanity.  The  essay  is  addressed  to  the 
Countess  de  Gurson,  who  bore  an  illustrious  name 
— Diane  de  Foix.  She  looked  forward  to  the 
birth  of  her  first  child,  who,  Montaigne  smilingly 
asserts,  must  surely  be  a  boy,  for  she  is  "  too  gen- 
erous to  begin  otherwise  than  with  a  male."    The 

*  Essays,  I,  25. 
31 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Essayist's  words  of  counsel  to  the  mother  form 
the  best  instruction  he  can  give  to  "  the  Httle  man 
that  threatens  her  shortly  with  a  happy  birth." 
The  writer's  preluding  of  self-depreciation,  half- 
humorous  yet  entirely  sincere,  is  in  his  inimitable 
manner  of  easy,  amiable,  and  overflowing  confes- 
sion. Then  he  addresses  himself  to  his  subject — 
The  Institution  of  Children.  The  prognostics 
derived  from  a  child's  inclination  for  this  or  that 
pursuit  need  not  be  too  seriously  regarded.  Give 
him  such  studies  as  are  best,  and  he  will  become 
what  nature  designed  him  to  be.  Choose  for  the 
boy  a  tutor  who  has  rather  a  "  well-made"  than  a 
"  well-filled"  head.  Such  a  teacher  will  exercise 
the  child's  faculties  instead  of  filling  his  memory 
with  words  and  little  pellets  of  indigested  facts. 
He  will  encourage  the  pupil  to  examine  things  for 
himself  rather  than  to  accept  statements  upon  au- 
thority. He  will  allow  him  to  perceive  the  diver- 
sity of  opinions  on  many  topics,  and  if  he  remains 
in  uncertainty,  is  it  ill  done  that  he  should  be 
instructed  in  that  important  part  of  human  con- 
duct— how  to  doubt? 

Montaigne's  ideal  of  education  is  Socratic  and 
Platonic  in  its  aiming  at  life  and  practice.  He 
was  familiar,  of  course,  in  Amyot's  translation, 
with  the  treatise  on  education  attributed,  probably 
erroneously,  to  Plutarch.  From  such  thinkers  he 
could  not  but  learn  to  admire  a  method  of  train- 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

ing  which  develops  the  whole  of  our  humanity, 
body  and  soul,  with  a  view  to  conduct  rather  than 
with  a  view  to  science.  The  one  science  in  his 
eyes  worth  knowing  thoroughly  is  that  of  living 
well  and  dying  well.  But  if  classical  antiquity  lay 
behind  Montaigne,  he  was  also  the  offspring  of 
the  Renaissance.  Erasmus,  before  Montaigne, 
had  protested  against  the  harshness  of  the  disci- 
pline of  the  Middle  Age.  Rabelais  loved  knowl- 
edge for  its  ow^n  sake  with  an  enthusiasm  un- 
known to  Montaigne.  He  had  been  carried  away 
by  a  glorious  intoxication  of  knowledge,  and  in 
his  vast  encyclopaedic  scheme  of  education  lay  an 
anticipation  of  what  generations  of  men,  but 
hardly  any  individual  man,  might  attain,  an  an- 
ticipation of  what  in  a  measure  they  have  since  at- 
tained. Montaigne  is  more  exclusively  the  moral- 
ist, and  perhaps  a  moralist  who  grasps  too  eagerly 
at  immediate  gains  for  character  and  conduct. 
From  the  mere  point  of  view  of  science  he  is  some- 
what of  the  dilettante;  and,  although  the  little 
gentleman  whom  he  would  form  may  learn  what 
is  valuable  from  a  bricklayer  or  a  peasant,  he  is 
essentially  an  aristocrat.  There  is,  accordingly,  in 
Montaigne's  ideal  a  certain  remoteness  from  the 
devotion  to  knowledge  proper  to  the  scholar  or 
the  man  of  science.  He,  like  Shakespeare,  views 
the  pedant  with  a  humorous  disdain,  as  one  whose 
brain  is  squeezed  into  a  narrow  compass  by  a 
3  33 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

superincumbent  weight  of  erudition,  or  as  a  seed- 
picker  who  holds  knowledge  on  the  tip  of  the 
tongue,  or  as  a  mendicant  who  begs  alms  from 
the  volmnes  upon  his  shelves.  Even  the  learned 
Turnebus,  true  scholar  and  no  pedant,  did  not 
dress  simply,  as  a  gentleman  should.  Montaigne 
could  even  speak  disrespectfully  of  the  first  aorist 
of  tupto.  The  learning  that  he  valued  is  not  that 
which  is  tied  to  the  soul,  but  that  which  is  incorpo- 
rated with  a  man's  life  and  being.  He  is  the  moral- 
ist rather  than,  in  the  widest  sense,  the  humanist. 
Yet  a  humanist  Montaigne  is;  and  for  the  sake 
of  a  robust  and  completely  accomplished  human- 
ity, he  can  relax  his  morals,  applauding  even  an 
occasional  excess  in  debauch  as  something  which 
a  gentleman  should  not  indeed  seek,  but  when 
need  arises,  gallantly  sustain ;  something  in  which 
he  ought  not  to  show  himself  an  inferior.  The 
reaction  against  the  scholastic  methods  of  the 
Middle  Age,  its  ergotisms,  its  endless  dialectic, 
and  the  reaction  also  against  its  ideals  of  almost 
superhuman  virtue  are  conspicuous  throughout 
the  essay  on  Education.  Asceticism  and  authority, 
as  it  has  been  put  by  M.  Hemon,  comprehend  the 
whole  of  the  Middle  Age ;  humanity  and  individ- 
ualism comprehend  the  whole  of  Montaigne. 

Not  authority,  but  wisdom — wisdom,  no  mat- 
ter from  what  source  obtained,  if  only  it  be  genu- 
ine, held  as  a  living  possession,  and  applied  to  a 
34 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

man's  best  uses !  The  honey-bee  makes  his  own 
honey,  whether  it  be  from  marjoram  or  thyme 
that  the  sweetness  comes.  Therefore  the  under- 
standing must  have  Hberty,  and  roam  abroad. 
Not  merely  books,  but  all  the  incidents  of  life 
should  be  our  instructors;  "a  page's  roguish 
trick,  a  servant's  stupid  blunder,  a  conversation  at 
table"  are  so  many  excellent  occasions  for  learn- 
ing. Especially  whatever  whets  and  brightens  the 
mind  is  to  be  sought,  and  hence  our  young  gen- 
tleman must  travel  into  foreign  countries;  not, 
indeed,  to  be  qualified  to  report  how  many  paces 
Santa  Rotonda  is  in  circuit,  or  how  much  longer 
and  broader  is  Nero's  face  in  a  statue  than  upon 
some  medal,  but  to  observe  the  humours,  man- 
ners, customs,  and  to  study  the  laws  of  various 
peoples.  Bodily  exercises  are  not  to  be  mere  pleas- 
ant sport;  they  should  include  real  strain  and 
risk,  so  that  a  man  may  learn  betimes  to  endure 
hardness.  Converse  with  others  should  be  not  for 
self-display,  but  for  the  acquisition  of  intellectual 
gains,  and  therefore  modesty,  and  sometimes 
silence,  are  much  to  be  commended  in  a  youth.  In 
argument  let  him  avoid  petty  subtleties,  and 
choose  to  be  bravely  honest,  loyally  submitting  to 
truth  at  the  first  moment  he  perceives  it  to  tell 
against  him,  even  though  his  adversary  has  not 
caught  at  the  advantage.  In  company  let  him 
have  an  eye  and  ear  in  every  corner ;  at  the  upper 

35 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

end  of  the  table  the  fine  folk  may  only  praise  the 
arras  or  commend  the  wine,  while  at  the  inferior 
part  of  the  board  some  humble  guest  may  utter  a 
good  word.  Let  him  be  inquisitive  after  many 
things — a  noble  house,  a  fair  fountain,  a  battle- 
field, an  eminent  man.  And  as  to  books,  let  him 
choose  those  which  bring  him  into  communion  with 
great  spirits  of  the  past  ages,  reading  not  to  learn 
the  date  of  the  ruin  of  Carthage,  but  to  study 
the  manner  of  life  of  Hannibal  and  Scipio,  and 
upon  these  to  try  his  judgment.  To  one  who  thus 
knows  how  to  interpret  it  aright  the  most  seem- 
ingly insignificant  fact  may  become  significant. 

Some  sufficient  portion  of  the  true  wisdom  of 
life  having  been  won,  all  other  things,  all  learning 
and  science,  law,  physics,  geometry,  rhetoric,  may 
with  discretion  be  added  to  this ;  but  this  remains 
the  one  thing  needful.  Such  divine  philosophy  is 
not  harsh  and  crabbed,  as  fools  suppose;  it  is 
charming,  and  even  gay.  "  Who  has  masked 
philosophy  with  this  false  visage,  pale  and  hid- 
eous? There  is  nothing  more  gay,  more  galliard, 
more  frolic,  and,  I  had  like  to  have  said,  more 
wanton;  she  preaches  nothing  but  feasting  and 
jollity;  an  aspect  melancholic  and  inanimate 
shows  that  she  does  not  inhabit  there."  A  wise 
and  joyous  soul  will  temper  the  body  also  to  sanity 
and  joy :  "  the  express  sign  of  wisdom  is  a  con- 
stant cheerfulness;  her  state  is  like  that  of  trans- 

36 


CHILDHOOD    AND    EDUCATION 

lunary  things,  always  serene.  .  .  .  She  has  virtue 
for  her  end,  which  is  not,  as  the  schools  declare, 
planted  upon  the  summit  of  a  broken,  rugged, 
and  inaccessible  mountain ;  those  who  have  ap- 
proached her  find  her,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  seated 
in  a  fair,  fertile,  and  flourishing  plain,  whence 
she  clearly  discerns  all  things  below."  Such  is 
Montaigne's  ideal  of  human  attainment,  and,  gay 
and  galliard  as  the  vision  may  be,  it  is  not  a  facile 
virtue  that  he  commends,  but  a  virtue  transformed 
through  virile  passion  and  effort  into  a  delight. 
If  fortune  fail,  and  fortitude  be  required,  wisdom 
can  create  a  better  and  a  higher  fortune  based 
upon  eternal  foundations.  But  should  a  pupil 
shrink  back  to  ease  from  the  toil  and  sweat  of  the 
battle,  *'  I  see  no  other  remedy,"  says  the  moral- 
ist, "  than  to  bind  him  'prentice  in  some  good 
town,  that  he  may  learn  to  make  minced  pies,  ay, 
though  he  were  the  son  of  a  duke."  This  tune 
goes  manly. 

The  end  of  all  is  action.  Therefore  that 
hydroptic  thirst  for  knowledge,  of  which  our  poet 
Donne  speaks,  is  not  to  be  indulged ;  a  man  may 
be  "  embruted"  by  such  a  greed  of  intellect.  Our 
pupil  may  learn  philosophy  in  a  garden,  at  a  table, 
amid  his  diversions;  so  wisdom  will  gently  and 
unawares  insinuate  itself  into  the  soul.  It  is  a 
man — soul  and  body  in  one — we  seek  to  form, 
and  the  method  should  be  sweet  and  also  severe, 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

or  rather  both  in  hving  unison^  tine  severe  doul- 
ceur,  a  severe  sweetness.  Let  the  school  be  no 
cruel  house  of  correction  for  captive  youth ; 
rather  let  it  be  hung  with  pictures  of  Joy  and 
Gladness,  of  Flora  and  the  Graces.  Make  a  boy 
hardy  by  other  instruments  than  the  bloody 
stumps  of  the  birch  rod ;  inure  him  to  heat  and 
cold,  to  wind  and  sun,  and  to  dangers  which  he 
ought  to  despise.  Let  him  embody  true  wisdom 
in  deeds  rather  than  learn  it  by  rote  to  amuse  him- 
self with  words.  As  for  words,  they  will  rise  up 
quickly  enough  and  aright  upon  the  vivid  percep- 
tion of  things.  You  may  receive,  if  you  please, 
an  admirable  lesson  in  rhetoric  from  a  fishwife  of 
the  Petit  Pont.  Quicken  wit,  invention,  judg- 
ment, and  then  a  sinewy,  muscular  way  of 
speech,  the  soldierlike  style,  straight-flung  words 
and  few,  such  as  Montaigne  especially  loves,  will 
come  inevitably,  and  as  it  were,  by  nature. 

So  Montaigne  sets  forth  his  doctrine  of  educa- 
tion. If  the  programme  of  Rabelais,  the  sanguine 
man  of  science,  be  placed  side  by  side  with  these 
counsels  of  the  discreet,  yet  ardent,  moralist,  and 
if  both  be  conceived  as  reduced  within  practicable 
limits  by  the  experience  and  moderation  of 
Ramus,  we  shall  have  before  us  a  view  of  the  most 
advanced  ideas  of  the  French  Renaissance  with 
reference  to  a  matter  which  had  become  one  of 
the  great  concerns  of  the  period. 

38 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   MAGISTRACY    AND   THE   COURT 

At  the  age  of  thirteen  Montaigne  had  com- 
pleted his  course  at  the  College  of  Guyenne.  Lit- 
tle is  known  as  to  his  manner  of  life  during  the 
ten  years  which  followed  his  school-days,  years 
of  the  highest  importance  in  the  formation  of  his 
mind.  We  leave  Montaigne  a  child,  and  find  him 
again  a  man  qualified  to  undertake  the  duties  of 
the  magistracy.  Little  is  known ;  much  has  been 
conjectured.  But  the  joy  and  profit  of  conjectural 
biography  is  chiefly  for  the  biographer,  and  more 
especially  for  that  happy  biographer  who  by  a 
new  conjecture  triumphs  over  the  latest  theory  of 
a  predecessor. 

It  seems  probable,  however,  that  when  Mon- 
taigne's studies  as  a  schoolboy  were  ended  he 
continued  to  attend  the  more  advanced  teaching 
given  in  the  precincts  of  the  College  of  Guyenne, 
which  was  recognised  as  part  of  the  instruction 
in  the  Faculty  of  Arts  of  the  University  of  Bor- 
deaux. M.  Bonnefon  has  pointed  to  a  passage  in 
the  essay  on  Education,  which  describes  the  or- 
dinary process  of  training,  as  being  not  improba- 
bly a  record  of  the  Essayist's  own  experience: 

39 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

"  We  are  kept  for  four  or  five  years  learning 
words,  and  tacking  them  together  into  clauses ;  as 
many  more  in  spreading  them  abroad  so  as  to 
form  an  extended  body  consisting  of  four  or  five 
parts ;  and  yet  again  five  years  at  least  in  learning 
to  mix  them  and  twist  them  together  in  a  subtle 
fashion."  That  is  to  say,  grammar  is  succeeded 
by  rhetoric,  and  rhetoric  by  dialectic  or  law.* 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Montaigne,  a  boy  be- 
tween fifteen  and  sixteen  years  old,  was  present 
in  Bordeaux  during  the  eventful  days  of  the  re- 
volt of  the  Gabelle  in  1548.  Taking  the  detested 
salt-tax  as  a  symbol  of  all  their  miseries,  the  in- 
surgents gathered  at  Saintonge,  where  the  party 
of  the  Reformed  Faith  was  strong.  Under  the 
leadership  of  the  Sieur  de  Puymoreau  they  speed- 
ily became  masters  of  the  whole  district.  A 
formidable  party,  commanded  by  Talemagne, 
marched  upon  Bordeaux,  conferred  at  Libourne 
with  the  municipal  councillors,  and  stirred  up  the 
disaffected  citizens.  The  tocsin  pealed  from  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  the  streets  were  filled  with  uproar 
and  tumult,  the  arsenal  was  seized,  and  the  arms 
were  distributed  among  the  insurgents.  Tristan 
de  Moneins,  lieutenant-general  in  Guyenne  under 
the  King  of  Navarre,  had  been  summoned  from 


*  It  was  probably  at  this  time  that  Montaigne  received 
instruction  from  Muret. 

40 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

Bayonne,  and  held  the  Castle.  At  the  entreaty  of 
the  President  de  La  Chassaigne  he  compHed  with 
the  demands  of  the  people,  and  came  forth  to  con- 
fer with  them.  The  boy  Montaigne  was  an  on- 
looker, and  the  twenty-third  essay  of  the  First 
Book  relates  the  event  of  which  he  had  been  a  wit- 
ness. Moneins  advanced  towards  the  insurgents 
with  a  kind  of  submissive  amiability  in  his  aspect. 
He  ought,  says  Montaigne,  to  have  met  the  crowd 
with  a  militaiy  bearing,  full  of  confidence  and 
vigour,  and  have  addressed  them  with  a  gracious 
severity.  Alarmed  by  the  threatening  faces  and 
gestures  around  him,  and  also  by  the  accident  of 
an  ill  omen — for  his  nose  happened  to  bleed — 
Moneins  faltered,  his  voice  was  shaken,  tears  filled 
his  eyes,  and,  throwing  his  gold  chain  to  the  mob, 
he  attempted  to  withdraw.  Then  the  fury  of  the 
crowd  broke  upon  him,  overv/helmed  him,  and  in 
a  moment  all  was  over.  Having  chosen  his  part, 
says  Montaigne,  he  should  have  played  it  out  res- 
olutely to  the  end.  ''  There  is  nothing  to  be  less 
hoped  for  from  the  roused  monster  than  humanity 
or  gentleness ;  it  is  much  more  capable  of  rever- 
ence or  fear." 

Montaigne  was  perhaps  a  witness  also  of  the 
vengeance  taken  upon  the  revolters,  and  upon  the 
city  by  the  Constable  de  Montmorenci,  a  kinsman 
of  the  murdered  Moneins,  and  by  his  victorious 
army.      The  axe,  the  cord,  the  wheel,  the  stake 

41 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

made  short  work  with  the  leaders  of  revolt ;  they 
were  drawn  by  horses,  decapitated,  impaled, 
broken,  burnt.  Talemagne  was  crowned  with 
red-hot  iron  before  his  limbs  were  broken.  The 
pleasure  of  vengeance  was  extended  over  some 
four  or  five  weeks.  The  wife  of  one  threatened 
victim  of  distinction  sued  for  mercy  from  the  Con- 
stable; he  gave  her  his  word  to  spare  the  hus- 
band if  she  would  gratify  his  passion  for  her 
beauty ;  she  yielded ;  after  which  he  led  her  to  a 
window  to  look  upon  her  husband's  mangled  body 
and  dripping  head.  The  charters  of  Bordeaux 
were  publicly  burnt  in  a  fire  which  the  jurats  were 
themselves  compelled  to  light;  the  privileges  of 
the  city  were  annulled;  the  bells  which  had  rung 
to  revolt  were  destroyed ;  not  one  remained  to  tell 
the  hours;  the  citizens  were  commanded  to  up- 
root the  hastily  buried  body  of  Moneins  with  their 
bare  hands  as  the  preliminary  to  a  pompous  fu- 
neral. It  was  to  recover  some  of  the  forfeited 
privileges  of  the  city  that  Pierre  Eyquem,  with 
his  pipes  of  generous  wine,  journeyed  to  Paris  as 
mayor  of  Bordeaux  in  1556. 

Montaigne  being  designed  for  the  magistracy, 
it  was  necessary  that  he  should  take  out  his 
courses  in  law.  The  University  of  Bordeaux, 
founded  in  1441,  was  not  one  of  the  great  edu- 
cational institutions  of  France.  Its  law-school 
had  no  high  repute  and  was  but  scantily  attended. 

42 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

But  at  no  great  distance,  in  the  city  where  his 
mother  had  Hved  in  her  maiden  days,  was  a  most 
distinguished  school  of  law,  that  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Toulouse.  ]\Iany  of  its  students  were 
drawn  from  the  city  of  Bordeaux.  No  docu- 
mentary evidence  exists  to  prove  that  Montaigne 
was  one  of  these  students,  but  the  probability  that 
this  was  the  case  is  considerable.  His  writings 
indicate  a  personal  acquaintance  with  several  of 
the  professors ;  of  the  students  at  Toulouse,  dur- 
ing the  period  when  he  may  have  been  in  attend- 
ance upon  the  lectures,  several  are  known  to  have 
been  connected  with  him  in  later  years.  In  1547 
the  illustrious  Cujas  gave  his  first  lecture  in  the 
law-school,  and  fitienne  Pasquier,  who  in  Paris 
had  been  a  pupil  of  Hotman,  remembered  the  day 
on  which  he  listened  to  that  lecture  as  one  of  the 
great  days  of  his  youth.  Pierre  Eyquem  may 
have  desired  that  his  son  should  profit  by  the 
teaching  of  a  master  so  distinguished.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  Montaigne  was  in  Toulouse  during  his 
early  years.  He  met  there,  he  tells  us,  in  the 
house  of  a  wealthy  old  man  his  physician,  Simon 
Thomas,  who  advised  the  invalid  to  encourage 
the  visits  of  young  Montaigne,  believing  that 
the  fresh  complexion,  sprightliness,  and  vigour 
of  the  youth  might,  through  the  influence  of 
imagination,  affect  favourably  the  health  of  his 
patient. 

43 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

The  day's  work  of  a  diligent  law-student  at 
Toulouse  in  the  midmost  years  of  the  sixteenth 
century  is  described  in  a  passage  of  the  Memoirs 
of  Henri  de  Mesmes,  which  has  been  often  quoted 
but  which  is  too  interesting  to  be  omitted  here. 

"  In  September,   1545,"  he  writes,  "  I  was  sent  to  Tou- 
\  louse  with  my  brother  to  study  law.  .  .  .  We  used  to  rise 

ifrom  bed  at  four  o'clock,  and,  having  prayed  to  God,  we 
went  at  five  o'clock  to  our  studies,  our  big  books  under  our 
arms,  our  inkhorns  and  candles  in  our  hands.     We  heard 

■  all  the  lectures  without  intermission  till  ten  o'clock  rang; 
then  we  dined,  after  having  hastily  compared,  during  a 
half-hour,  our  notes  of  the  lectures.  After  dinner  we  read, 
as  a  recreation,  Sophocles  or  Aristophanes  or  Euripides, 
and    sometimes    Demosthenes,    Cicero,    Virgil,   or   Horace. 

■  At  one  o'clock  to  our  studies ;  at  five  back  to  our  dwelling- 
place,  there  to  go  over  and  verify  passages  cited  in  the  lec- 

;  tures,  until  six.  Then  supper,  and  after  supper  we  read 
,  Greek  or  Latin.  On  holy  days  we  went  to  high  mass  and 
\  vespers ;   the  rest  of  the  day,  a  little  music  and  walks." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  study  of  jurispru- 
dence at  Toulouse  was,  in  the  instance  of  Henri 
de  Mesmes,  allied  with  the  study  of  the  humani- 
ties. This  was  equally,  or  in  a  higher  degree,  the 
case  with  Montaigne's  future  friend,  fitienne  de  la 
Boetie  at  the  University  of  Orleans.  Such  an 
"  intermarriage"  of  studies  is  noted  by  Pasquier 
as  characteristic  of  the  period.  It  formed,  indeed, 
an  essential  feature  of  the  new  learning  as  applied 
to  legal  education.  The  Roman  law  was  not  to  be 
merely  repeated  by  rote ;   it  was  to  be  understood 

44 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

first  from  the  point  of  view  proper  to  philology; 
second,  from  the  historical  point  of  view;  and 
again  to  a  certain  extent  from  the  point  of  view  of 
a  wider  and  more  speculative  philosophy.  We 
can  hardly  suppose  that  at  any  season  of  his  life 
Montaigne  was  enamoured  of  studies  in  which 
grammatical  discussions  and  curiosities  of  inter- 
pretative subtlety  often  rather  trammelled  than 
advanced  the  business  of  life.  Certainly  in  his 
mature  years  he  had  none  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
legist,  and  he  regarded  the  administration  of  the 
law  in  a  spirit  of  criticism  which  leaned  towards 
contempt.  He  held  that  the  laws  of  a  country 
should  be  obeyed  "  not  because  they  are  just,  but 
because  they  are  laws" ;  this,  he  adds,  is  the  mysti- 
cal foundation  of  their  authority.  "  How  often," 
he  cries,  "  have  I  done  myself  a  manifest  injustice 
to  avoid  the  hazard  of  having  yet  a  worse  done 
me  by  the  judges,  after  an  age  of  vexations,  dirty 
and  vile  practices,  more  antagonistic  to  my  nature 
than  fire  or  the  rack."  When  a  man  has  lost  his 
action  at  law,  he  ought  to  rejoice,  Montaigne 
thinks,  as  when  he  has  lost  a  cough.  "  In  a  happy 
hour  I  may  say  it,"  he  writes  in  one  of  the  essays 
of  1588,  "  I  am  to  this  day  a  virgin  from  all  suits 
at  law." 

Men  speak  of  natural  law,  the  laws  of  nature, 
but  what  are  these  ?  There  is  no  so-called  law  of 
nature  that  is  not  rejected  by  the  established  laws 

45 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

of  this  country  or  of  that ;  yet  there  can  be  no 
other  evidence  that  it  is  natural — so  argues  the 
Essayist — except  the  universal  consent  of  man- 
kind. To  meet  an  infinite  diversity  of  cases,  laws 
are  multiplied  to  infinity ;  yet  each  case  differs  in 
various  circumstances  from  every  other,  and  their 
diversity  is  never  really  overtaken  by  the  laws : 
"  There  is  little  relation  between  our  actions, 
which  are  in  perpetual  mutation,  and  the  laws, 
which  are  fixed  and  immobile;  the  laws  most  to 
be  desired  are  the  rarest,  the  simplest,  and  the 
most  general ;  and  yet  I  believe  it  would  be  better 
to  have  none  at  all  than  to  have  laws  as  numerous 
as  we  actually  have."  Add  to  the  multiplicity  of 
laws  and  the  variety  of  conflicting  customs  the 
fact  that  laws  are  expressed  and  set  forth  in  a 
jargon  the  strangest  and  most  perplexing.  Glosses 
and  interpretations  crowd  one  upon  another,  and 
the  interpretations  require  to  be  themselves  inter- 
preted :  "  In  a  science  so  infinite,  depending  on 
the  authority  of  so  many  opinions,  and  dealing 
with  a  subject  so  arbitrary,  it  cannot  but  happen 
that  an  extreme  confusion  of  judgments  should 
arise." 

"  Why  is  it,"  Montaigne  asks,  "  that  our  common  speech, 
so  easy  for  all  other  uses,  becomes  obscure  and  unintelli- 
gible in  contract  and  testament?  And  that  he  who  so 
clearly  expresses  himself  in  whatever  else  he  says  or  writes, 
cannot  here  find  any  mode  of  utterance  that  does  not  fall 
into  doubt  and  contradiction — why  is  this,  unless  it  be  that 

46 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

the  princes  of  that  art,  applying  themselves  with  a  peculiar 
attention  to  cull  out  solemn  words  and  frame  elaborate 
clauses,  have  so  weighed  each  syllable,  so  exactly  hunted 
out  every  point  of  connection,  that  they  are  entangled  and 
embroiled  in  an  infinity  of  figures  and  divisions,  so  minute 
that  they  can  no  longer  fall  under  any  rule  or  prescription, 
or  any  assured  intelligence.  ...  As  you  see  children  trying 
to  bring  a  mass  of  quicksilver  to  a  precise  number  of  parts, 
the  more  they  press  and  work  it,  and  endeavour  to  reduce 
it  to  their  rule,  the  more  they  excite  the  liberty  of  this 
generous  metal ;  it  evades  their  art  and  sprinkles  itself 
into  so  many  parts  as  defy  all  reckoning ;  so  it  is  here,  for 
in  subdividing  these  subtilties  we  teach  men  to  multiply 
their  doubts.  .  .  .  We  should  obliterate  the  trace  of  these 
innumerable  diversities  of  opinions,  not  deck  ourselves  with 
their  variety,  and  make  giddy  the  heads  of  our  posterity."  * 

These  were  the  views  of  one  who  had  retired 
from  his  position  as  an  administrator  of  the  law, 
and  who  may  have  found  a  pleasure  in  multiply- 
ing reasons  for  his  decision,  but  they  do  not  lead 
us  to  suppose  that  even  in  his  early  days  he  had  a 
special  vocation  for  his  official  duties.  It  was, 
however,  his  father's  wish  that  Montaigne  should 
hold  the  position  of  a  magistrate;  and  perhaps 
with  this  in  view,  and  intending  to  resign  in  fa- 
vour of  his  son,  Pierre  Eyquem  had  obtained  for 
himself  by  purchase  such  a  post  in  the  newly- 
established  Court  of  Aids  at  Perigueux.  To  ob- 
tain a  judicial  appointment  by  purchase  was  no 
irregular  procedure;    it  had  been  authorised  by 

*  Essays,  III,  13. 
47 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Francis  I.,  and  was  found  by  his  successor  to  be 
a  convenient  mode  of  replenishing  a  greedy  treas- 
ury. IMontaigne  in  his  Essays  condemned  the 
barter  of  such  appointments :  "  What  can  be 
more  savage  than  to  see  a  nation,  where,  by  law- 
ful custom,  the  office  of  a  judge  is  put  up  to  sale, 
and  judgments  are  paid  for  with  ready  money?" 
But  he  well  knew  that  neither  his  father  nor  he 
had  ever  turned  justice  itself  into  an  article  of 
commerce. 

Bordeaux  had  opposed  the  establishment  of  the 
Court  at  Perigueux.  Under  opposing  influences 
the  King  had  wavered  to  and  fro.  At  length  the 
Court  was  definitely  constituted,  and  almost  at  the 
moment  when  Pierre  Eyquem  became  one  of 
its  members  he  was  elected  (i  August,  1554) 
mayor  of  Bordeaux.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
the  position  obtained  by  Montaigne  was  that  left 
vacant  by  his  father's  resignation  upon  election 
to  the  more  distinguished  office.  The  young  man 
was  only  twenty-one  years  of  age,  but  the  statu- 
tory obligations  as  to  age  were  occasionally  dis- 
regarded. La  Boetie  was  admitted  a  councillor 
at  twenty-three  and  a  half  years  old;  Henri  de 
Mesmes  was  admitted  at  a  little  over  twenty.  The 
Court  of  Aids  at  Perigueux  had,  however,  a  brief 
existence.  First  limited  in  the  sphere  of  its  opera- 
tions to  appease  the  jealousy  of  the  Court  at 
Montpellier,  it  w-as  suppressed  in  May,  1557,  and 

48 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

an  order  was  given  that  its  members  should  be 
incorporated  in  the  corresponding  Court  of  the 
Parhament  of  Bordeaux.  The  Parhament,  antici- 
pating a  dispersion  of  its  fees  among  an  aug- 
mented body  of  officials,  resisted  with  vigour. 
The  King's  advisers,  after  an  unsuccessful  effort 
to  compromise  the  matter  by  establishing  a  new 
Chamber  of  Requests  at  Bordeaux,  were  resolute, 
and  before  the  close  of  1557  the  councillors  of  the 
extinct  Court  at  Perigueux,  and  Montaigne 
among  them,  were  admitted  as  members  of  the 
Parliament.  The  relations  of  the  older  members 
with  those  newly  admitted  were  at  first  the  reverse 
of  cordial.  If  Montaigne  were  a  philosopher  and 
no  more  we  might  smile  on  observing  that  his  first 
public  act  was  concerned  with  a  question  of  pre- 
cedence, which  had  arisen  between  the  new  mem- 
bers from  Perigueux  and  those  more  recently 
admitted  in  the  ordinary  way — a  question  con- 
cerning which  no  person  now  alive  need  be  pro- 
foundly moved.  But  Montaigne,  philosopher 
though  he  afterwards  might  be,  was  at  no  time 
indifferent  to  points  of  dignity,  and  when  the  mat- 
ter was  decided  against  him  and  his  fellows,  he 
was  probably  as  willing  as  the  others  to  carry  the 
question  to  the  King.  It  w^as  not  until  September, 
1 56 1,  that  the  councillors  from  Perigueux  entered 
into  possession  of  their  full  prerogatives. 

The  duties  of  a  councillor  were  judicial  and  ad- 
4  49 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

ministrative  rather  than  legislative.  There  were 
times  of  disturbance  when  the  councillors  acted 
also  as  the  guardians  of  public  order.  The  magis- 
tracy of  Bordeaux  was  a  learned  and  laborious 
body  of  men,  but  not  exempted  by  virtue  of  their 
learning  from  the  violent  passions  of  the  time.  A 
few  of  them  were  distinguished  diplomatists,  sev- 
eral were  devoted  legists,  studying  the  Roman 
law,  studying  the  ordinances  of  the  Crown,  study- 
ing the  various  customs  of  their  districts,  happy 
in  deploying  at  large  their  own  subtlety  and  eru- 
dition. Some  were  zealous  in  philological  re- 
search ;  some,  in  historical  investigation ;  some,  in 
the  lore  of  antiquaries.  There  was  a  minority  in 
the  Parliament  that  was  disposed  to  liberal  viev/s 
in  matters  of  religion,  or  at  least  was  tolerant  and 
humane.  There  was  a  stronger  party  of  violent 
orthodoxy,  that  recognised  the  sacred  uses  of  the 
faggot  and  the  noose.  Instructed  by  the  ferocious 
lessons  of  the  Constable  de  Montmorenci,  the  city 
of  Bordeaux,  after  the  Revolt  of  the  Gabelle,  kept 
in  general  within  the  bounds  of  order;  but  the 
neighbouring  districts  were  often  turbulent,  and 
the  supporters  of  the  Reformed  Faith  were  numer- 
ous both  within  the  city  and  throughout  the  prov- 
ince. In  1 561  Bordeaux  contained  seven  thou- 
sand Calvinists.  In  1554  the  Protestant  preacher, 
Bernard  de  Borda,  underwent  the  torture.  In 
1556  two  youths  accused  of  heresy,  Arnaud  Mon- 
50 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

nier  and  Jean  de  Caze,  were  burnt  alive.  Terror 
seized  the  populace  and  even  the  guard ;  they  fled, 
and  the  flames  mounted  around  the  victims  in  a 
soHtude  of  horror.  In  1559  the  wealthy  merchant 
Pierre  Feugere,  charged  with  the  mutilation  of 
sacred  images,  was  condemned  to  the  stake,  and 
the  sentence  was  carried  into  effect.  In  1561  six 
members  of  the  Reformed  Communion  were 
brought  to  judgment  for  the  offence  of  having 
partaken  together  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  A  little 
later  the  burial  of  Protestants  in  cemeteries  was 
forbidden.  At  length  came  the  Chancellor 
L'Hopital's  edict  of  pacification  (January,  1562) 
which  allowed  the  Huguenots  under  certain  con- 
ditions to  celebrate  worship  in  places  outside  the 
city  gates,  a  measure  of  toleration  which  three 
months  later  received  some  enlargement.  Mon- 
taigne, who  afterwards  dedicated  to  L'Hopital 
the  posthumous  publication  of  his  friend  La  Boe- 
tie's  Latin  verses,  was  assuredly  of  the  party  of 
moderation ;  at  the  same  time  he  was  loyal  to  the 
faith  of  his  father,  and  was  above  all  a  lover  of 
order. 

The  edict  of  January,  1562,  guarded,  as  it  was, 
in  its  effort  towards  toleration,  was  yet  too  liberal 
for  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  which  accepted  it 
only  under  strong  pressure  from  the  Chancellor. 
It  was  perhaps  too  liberal  for  the  Parliament  of 
Bordeaux.     The  decree  was,  indeed,  duly  regis- 

51 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

tered ;  but,  following  the  example  of  Paris,  the 
Parliament  proceeded  to  establish  the  orthodoxy 
of  its  own  members  by  a  sworn  profession  of  faith. 
The  spirit  of  the  intolerant  Parliament  of  Paris 
was  the  same  spirit  that  manifested  itself  in  the 
massacre  of  Vassy,  and  precipitated  the  horrors 
of  the  civil  strife.  Montaigne  at  this  time  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  capital.  A  few  days  after  the 
oath — which,  to  make  orthodoxy  more  orthodox, 
included  a  pledge  of  adherence  to  the  formulary 
of  the  Sorbonne  of  the  year  1543 — had  been  ad- 
ministered in  Paris,  and  before  the  Parliament 
of  Bordeaux  had  as  yet  taken  action  in  the  matter, 
he  voluntarily  came  forward  to  make  a  declara- 
tion of  his  belief.  What  was  Montaigne's  motive 
in  thus  hastening  to  identify  himself  with  an  ex- 
treme party  ?  Was  his  liberality  of  temper  a  later 
growth?  Was  his  orthodoxy  the  politic  outcome 
of  a  veiled  indifference?  Was  he  apprehensive 
that  the  mission  with  which  he  had  been  intrusted 
by  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux  might  have  been 
compromised  if  he  had  failed  to  tender  the  oath? 
Did  he  act  upon  the  advice  of  some  superior 
friend?  It  is  wise  to  confess  that  we  do  not  know. 
Some  unascertained  circumstance  of  the  hour  may 
have  determined  his  procedure.  It  is  certain  that 
he  regarded  the  Catholic  party,  though  not  in  its 
acts  of  sanguinary  violence,  as  the  party  of  order, 
and  Montaigne's  reverence  for  order  was  hardly 

52 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

of  that  kind  which  recognises  in  audacities  of 
progress  an  element  essential  to  the  security  of 
order. 

Montaigne's  friendship  with  La  Boetie  seems 
to  give  us  a  pledge  that  even  in  his  earlier  years  he 
was  a  lover  of  justice  and  of  temperate  reason- 
ableness. The  passages  in  the  Essays  which 
breathe  the  spirit  of  tolerance  were  not  the  effer- 
vescence of  a  passing  mood ;  they  were  the  out- 
come of  experience,  prolonged  observation,  and 
meditative  wisdom.  He  would  prefer,  he  says,  to 
treat  a  witch  or  a  sorcerer  with  hellebore  rather 
than  with  hemlock;  much  more  a  Calvinist,  like 
his  own  brother  and  sister.  After  all,  as  he  char- 
acteristically puts  it,  to  burn  a  man  alive  is  to  set 
a  very  high  value  on  one's  own  conjectures. 
"  When  occasion  has  summoned  me  to  the  con- 
demnation of  the  guilty,  I  have  fallen  somewhat 
short  of  justice.  .  .  .  Ordinary  judgments  are 
exasperated  to  punish  through  horror  of  the 
crime ;  it  cools  mine ;  the  horror  of  the  first  mur- 
der makes  me  fear  a  second,  and  the  hideousness 
of  the  first  cruelty  makes  me  abhor  all  imitation 
of  it."  Capital  punishment  he  did  not  condemn ; 
but  death  with  torture  he  regarded  as  a  mere 
atrocity.  "Anything  over  and  above  death  seems 
to  me  pure  cruelty."  To  attempt  to  wring  truth 
from  an  accused  person  by  the  rack  is  at  the  low- 
est "  a  way  full  of  uncertainty  and  danger" ;   it  is 

53 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

a  trial  of  endurance  rather  than  of  truth.  And 
yet  Montaigne,  while  strenuously  condemning 
question  by  the  rack,  suggests  that  there  may  be 
something  in  the  notion  that  an  evil  conscience 
may  cause  the  victim  to  falter  into  a  genuine  con- 
fession, while  a  consciousness  of  innocence  may 
prove  a  sufficient  support  to  fortitude.  He  could 
not  himself  look  upon  the  execution  of  a  sentence, 
how  reasonable  soever,  with  a  steady  eye.  The 
license  of  the  civil  wars  had  not  merely  indurated 
the  hearts  of  men;  there  had  grown  up  in  them 
a  strange  and  unnatural  lust  of  cruelty,  a  kind  of 
delighted  ecstasy  in  witnessing  the  writhing  limbs 
and  hearing  the  lamentable  groans  of  those  who 
died  in  anguish.  Montaigne  would  if  possible 
turn  aside  from  the  sight  of  a  hare  caught  in  the 
teeth  of  a  dog.  Yet  that  incomparable  military 
leader,  who  always  meant  business,  thinking  it 
prudent  to  hang  first  and  sentence  afterwards, 
that  remorseless  champion  of  order,  Monluc, 
whose  two  lackeys  furnished  numberless  trees 
with  the  dangling  fruit  of  Huguenot  corpses,  was 
not  rejected  from  his  acquaintance  by  Montaigne. 
Perhaps  the  most  affecting  page  of  the  Essays, 
one  which,  whenever  she  read  it,  brought  tears  to 
the  eyes  of  Mme.  de  Sevigne,  is  the  page  which 
tells  of  the  hard  man's  passion  of  remorse,  be- 
trayed in  Montaigne's  presence,  at  the  memory  of 
that  austerity  which  had  always  cloaked  his  affec- 

54 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

tion  for  the  son  now  dead,  dead  without  once  hav- 
ing discovered  his  father's  heart. 

While  Montaigne  thought  that  a  witch-burning 
or  an  auto  da  fe  impHes  a  high  esteem  for  our 
own  conjectures,  he  would  apply  a  like  criticism 
to  those  who  disturb  a  commonwealth  for  the  sake 
of  a  supposed  reformation  of  the  faith,  or  a  polit- 
ical theory.  Outrages  against  humanity,  during 
the  troubles  in  France,  were  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  royal  army  or  the  League.  Montaigne  dis- 
trusted novelty,  whatever  pretentious  promises  it 
may  make,  and  he  believed  that  the  great  evils 
which  he  had  seen  growing  and  spreading  in  his 
own  country  warranted  his  distrust.  He  had  a 
sense  of  the  complex  and  delicate  contexture  of 
society,  so  gradual  in  its  formation,  so  liable  to 
injury,  so  difficult  to  repair,  and  this  tended  to 
make  him  rather  bear  existing  ills  than,  in  the 
hope  of  amending  them,  fly  to  others  perhaps 
more  desperate.  "  Freely  to  speak  my  thought,  it 
seems  to  me  to  argue  a  great  self-love  and  pre- 
sumption to  be  so  fond  of  one's  own  opinions  that 
in  order  to  establish  them  a  public  peace  must  be 
overthrown,  so  many  inevitable  evils  must  be  in- 
troduced, with  so  dreadful  a  corruption  of  man- 
ners as  civil  wars  and  the  mutations  of  states  in 
matters  of  high  concern  bring  in  their  train,  and 
all  this  in  a  country  that  is  our  own.  Can  there 
be  worse  husbandry  than  to  summon  into  exist- 

55 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

ence  so  many  certain  and  acknowledged  vices  only 
to  combat  errors  which  are  debatable  and  in  dis- 
pute?"* Montaigne  believed  that  a  reformation 
going  far  deeper  than  the  doctrinal,  theological 
reformation  was  needed;  and  it  might  work  in 
quietness.  How  could  this  doctrinal  reformation 
be  other  than  shallow  or  unreal  when,  in  attempt- 
ing to  remove  certain  external  and  superficial  cor- 
ruptions of  the  time,  it  left  untouched  the 
profounder  and  essential  vices  of  human  char- 
acter. 

For  the  duties  of  a  magistrate,  and  especially 
of  a  magistrate  at  a  time  of  fierce  political  and 
religious  differences,  Montaigne  was  assuredly  lit- 
tle qualified  either  by  the  character  of  his  intellect 
or  by  his  natural  temperament.  Of  this  fact  he 
can  hardly  but  have  been  himself  aware  from  the 
first.  His  absences  from  the  Parliament  of  Bor- 
deaux were  frequent,  and  were  sometimes  of  long 
duration.  The  Court — a  centre  at  least  of  vivid 
life — attracted  him  to  Paris.  He  had  a  theory 
that  democracy  was  the  most  natural  and  equita- 
ble form  of  government;  but  the  ancient  mon- 
archy of  France  was  part  of  the  order  of  things, 
and  too  good  a  part  to  allow  Montaigne  to  think 
of  its  disturbance  without  alarm  and  grief.  Kings 
are  to  be  obeyed  precisely  because  they  are  kings ; 

*  Essays,  I,  22. 
S6 


MAGISTRACY   AND    COURT 

whether  they  are  also  to  be  esteemed  depends  on 
their  quahties  as  individual  men.  There  can  be 
no  question  that  they  are  the  dispensers  of  fa- 
vours. Though  he  afterwards  professed  his  con- 
tentment with  a  middle  sphere  of  life,  we  can 
hardly  doubt  that  in  his  early  manhood  Mon- 
taigne was  ambitious  of  advancement.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  he  felt  an  enthusiasm  for  the  capital,  with 
its  brilliance,  its  animation,  its  tides  of  sentiment 
and  ideas,  which  he  could  not  feel  for  his  own  city 
of  Bordeaux.  "  That  city,"  he  wrote  of  Paris, 
"  has  from  my  infancy  had  my  heart,  and  it  has 
happened,  as  is  the  case  with  excellent  things, 
that  the  more  I  have  since  seen  of  other  beautiful 
cities,  the  more  the  beauty  of  this  still  wins  upon 
my  affections.  ...  I  love  her  tenderly,  even  to 
her  warts  and  blemishes.  I  am  a  Frenchman 
only  through  this  great  city,  .  .  .  the  glory  of 
France,  and  one  of  the  most  noble  ornaments  of 
the  world.  May  God  drive  our  divisions  from 
her!"* 

Montaigne  at  this  date  was  not  the  sage  of  the 
tower,  who  regarded  the  whole  of  life  with  wise 
and  humorous  eyes,  a  little  disenchanted,  yet  in- 
terested in  the  infinite  variety  of  things,  and  inter- 
ested above  all  in  observing  that  most  diverse  and 
complex  of  God's  creatures — himself.    He  was  an 

*  Essays,  III,  9. 
57 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

ardent  and  full-blooded  son  of  the  South ;  an  Al- 
cibiades — to  whom,  indeed,  his  most  intimate 
friend  compared  him — but  an  Alcibiades  who  in- 
cluded within  him  a  yet  puny  Socrates.  Full- 
blooded,  somewhat  low  of  stature,  a  thing  to 
regret ;  but  sound  and  sane  of  body,  broad-shoul- 
dered, built  for  strength  and  endurance ;  not  soon 
fatigued  by  the  ardour  of  enjoyment;  dressing 
richly,  and  looking  well  in  his  fine  clothes ;  brisk 
of  step,  sudden,  and  emphatic  in  gesture,  impa- 
tient of  restraint,  flinging  forth  his  words  with 
prompt  decision ;  indolent  or  active  as  the  fit  took 
him,  in  love  with  the  world,  the  stir  of  life,  the 
mundane  splendours  and  pleasures;  sociable, 
frank,  joyous,  and  yet  with  a  haunting  thought, 
such  as  possessed  our  English  Donne  in  his  fiery 
youth,  that  life  is  short,  and  death  is  always  pres- 
ent behind  the  curtain. 

"  There  is  nothing  which  I  have  more  con- 
stantly entertained  myself  withal  than  imagina- 
tions of  death,  even  in  the  most  wanton  season  of 
my  age.  ...  In  the  company  of  ladies,  and  at 
games,  certain  may  have  supposed  me  musing 
with  myself  how  to  digest  some  jealousy  or  the 
doubtful  promise  of  some  hope,  while  my  thoughts 
were  occupied  with  remembrance  of  one  or  an- 
other that,  but  few  days  before,  was  surprised 
with  a  burning  fever,  and  of  his  end,  coming  from 
a  like  entertainment,  his  head  full  of  idleness,  love 

S8 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

and  jollity,  as  was  mine,  and  that  the  same  des- 
tiny was  at  hand  in  wait  for  me."  * 

This  is  like  a  picture  from  the  Dance  of  Death, 
but  from  such  thoughts  as  these  Montaigne  could 
suddenly  return  with  an  added  zest  to  gather  the 
roses;  or  at  least,  as  he  afterwards  said,  to  plant 
his  cabbages. 

To  attempt  to  follow  Montaigne  through  his 
several  visits  to  the  Court  would  be  difficult  and 
of  little  profit,  for  his  objects  and  interests  as  a 
courtier  are  veiled  in  obscurity.  He  certainly  in 
his  youth  knew  Paris — the  old  Paris  of  narrow 
streets,  through  which  the  courtiers  rode,  of  flap- 
ping sign-boards,  of  great  fortified  mansions,  of 
high-walled  monasteries,  of  vast  rising  structures, 
the  Louvre,  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  while  then  as  now 
Notre-Dame  looked  down  over  the  city,  but  a  city 
of  far  smaller  dimensions.  The  groups  of  emi- 
nent men  and  beautiful  women — for  Montaigne 
set  much  store  on  beauty — were  a  chief  attraction 
to  the  Court,  and  nothing  great  or  small  was  in- 
significant to  the  eyes  of  this  keen  observer  from 
the  provinces.  He  never  flattered,  if  we  may  be- 
lieve his  own  word;  and,  whether  he  desired 
favours  or  not,  he  never  received  a  favour. 
"  Princes  give  me  enough,"  he  afterwards  wrote, 
"  if  they  take  nothing  from  me,  and  do  me  enough 

*  Essays,  I,  19. 
59 


AIICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

good  if  they  do  me  no  evil.  That  is  all  I  require." 
He  honoured  the  ruler  of  his  people  as  such,  but 
rather  pitied  poor  kings,  to  whom  all  men  bow, 
and  who  can  never  know  the  joy,  the  glow  which 
accompany  a  medley  of  intellects.  He  remembered 
how  in  the  sports  of  his  own  childhood  he  resented 
it  if  things  were  made  too  easy  by  his  elders,  and 
the  encounter  was  not  real  but  amiably  feigned. 
Yet  this  is  the  perpetual  condition  of  a  prince. 
What  honest  instructor  has  he  except  his  horse, 
who  is  no  flatterer,  and  will  throw  the  eldest  son 
of  a  king  with  no  more  ceremony  than  he  would 
throw  the  son  of  a  porter?  Montaigne,  in  his 
recollections  of  the  Court,  bore  in  mind  its  vexa- 
tions— the  waiting  at  doors  while  an  usher  bars 
the  entrance,  the  ineptitude  of  courtiers,  the  babble 
of  petty  mysteries,  the  falsehoods,  the  intrigues, 
the  pledges  never  meant  to  be  redeemed;  and, 
though  the  gentleman  from  Bordeaux  wore  his 
fine  clothes,  he  perceived  that  your  true  gilded  but- 
terfly —  empty-headed  youths  enough  —  looked 
upon  a  country  squire  with  a  touch  of  fine  disdain, 
as  a  creature  from  another  and  a  meaner  world. 

The  Court  of  Henri  H.  was  brilliant  in  all 
things  exterior,  and  under  the  influence  of  Cath- 
erine de'  Medici  had  been  somewhat  Italianated. 
Montaigne  recalls  the  incident  which  he  had  wit- 
nessed of  the  King's  embarrassment  in  failing  to 
remember  the  name  of  a  Gascon  gentleman  not  so 
60 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

fortunate  as  to  possess  a  name  worthy  to  live  in  a 
royal  ear.  When,  in  the  essay  That  We  Arc  Not 
to  Judge  of  Our  Hour  Till  After  Death,  he  refers, 
with  an  outcry  of  indignation,  to  the  beheading  of 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  it  may  be  that  he  remem- 
bered having  seen  her  in  her  triumphant  beauty  at 
the  Court.  Himself  an  accomplished  horseman, 
he  was  filled  with  admiration  of  the  splendid  man- 
age of  his  steed  by  M.  de  Carnevalet,  first  equerry 
of  Henri  H.  He  speaks  in  a  way  which  might 
lead  us  to  suppose  that  he  was  present  when,  in 
the  tourney,  Montgomery's  spear  bore  down  the 
King,  and  he  recalls,  as  an  example  of  the  ease 
with  which  custom  passes  into  authority,  the  year 
of  court  mourning,  when  cloth  became  the  fash- 
ion, and  silks  were  left  to  the  citizens  and  the  phy- 
sicians. He  probably  looked  at  the  pompous  cere- 
mony of  the  consecration  of  Francois  H.  at  Reims ; 
for  he  records  how,  a  little  later,  he  was  with  the 
newly-consecrated  King  at  Bar-le-Duc,  when  the 
portrait  of  Rene  of  Anjou  was  exhibited,  for  a 
purpose ;  and,  no  doubt,  with  a  commentary  highly 
favourable  to  the  house  of  Guise. 

On  the  occasion  when  Montaigne  made  his 
profession  of  faith  in  1562  he  had  visited  the  capi- 
tal partly  on  public  business  as  a  representative  of 
the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux,  partly  on  private 
affairs.  He  accompanied  Charles  IX.  to  Rouen 
— unhappy  city,  besieged,  captured,  given  over  to 

61 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

pillage.  He  describes,  but  not  as  an  eye-witness, 
the  discovery  of  a  plot  for  the  assassination  of  the 
Duke  of  Guise  outside  the  besieged  city ;  but  what 
especiall}^  excited  his  curiosity  and  set  his  imagi- 
nation to  work  was  the  sight  of  three  natives  of 
Brazil,  unwise  seekers  for  the  wisdom  of  Europe, 
who  held  discourse  with  the  King,  and  also  with 
the  philosopher,  aided  by  a  too  unskilled  interpre- 
ter. In  Montaigne's  service,  but  perhaps  at  a  later 
date,  was  a  plain,  ignorant  fellow,  all  the  better 
because  of  the  ignorance,  which  saved  him  from 
the  temptation  to  be  rather  picturesque  than  vera- 
cious, who  had  spent  some  ten  or  twelve  years  of 
his  life  in  the  New  World,  and  in  that  part  of  it 
from  which  these  inquisitive  savages  had  come. 
On  various  occasions  this  good  fellow  had 
brought  to  the  chateau  of  Montaigne  sailors  and 
merchants  who  had  made  the  same  voyage.  The 
insatiable  curiosity  of  the  master  was  gratified  by 
what  he  regarded  as  honest  though  insufficient  re- 
ports. Among  the  treasures  of  his  house  was  a 
collection  of  the  weapons,  domestic  furniture,  and 
musical  instruments  of  savage  tribes.  He  pre- 
served a  song  made  by  a  prisoner  among  the  can- 
nibals, in  which  the  poet  cheerfully  invited  his  cap- 
tors to  the  feast  for  which  his  body  was  to  provide 
the  viands ;  and  a  second  piece  of  verse,  a  graceful 
love-song,  "  Stay,  adder,  stay,"  which  reminded 
Montaigne   of   Anacreon.      From   what  he  had 

62 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

heard  of  these  barbarians  they  seemed  to  him  to 
have  some  advantages  over  the  subjects  of  a  most 
Christian  King.  It  was  surely  less  atrocious  to 
roast  and  eat  a  lifeless  body  than  to  tear  it,  while 
alive,  limb  from  limb,  or  to  roast  our  shrinking 
neighbour  under  pretence  of  doing  God  service. 
Montaigne's  imagination  voyaged  forth  to 
strange,  imaginary  lands,  and  undiscovered  isles 
in  far-off  seas.  Perhaps  there  are  many  such. 
Perhaps  the  happiest  republic  would  be  one  where 
there  was  no  name  of  magistrate : 

"  Letters  should  not  be  known ;    riches,  poverty, 
And  use  of  service,  none ;    contract,  succession, 
Bourn,  bound  of  land,  tilth,  vineyard  none ; 
No  use  of  metal,  corn,  or  wine,  or  oil ; 
No  occupation  .  .  .  but  nature  should  bring  forth 
Of  its  own  kind,  all  foison,  all  abundance. 
To  feed  my  innocent  people." 

For  Gonzalo  in  The  Tempest  had  been  a  reader 
of  the  Essays,  and  on  an  enchanted  island  might 
plagiarise  a  little  with  safety. 

Montaigne  had  read  of  the  perfidies  and  the 
atrocities  of  the  Spaniards  in  Mexico  and  Peru, 
and  all  his  sympathies  went  with  the  magnani- 
mous barbarians.  He  wished  that  so  noble  a  con- 
quest had  fallen  to  Alexander  or  the  old  Romans 
rather  than  to  pretended  Christians,  who  de- 
frauded and  slaughtered  a  people  having  virtues 
like  those  of  the  ancient  world,  Christians  who 
63 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

brought  the  contagion  of  vice  to  innocent  souls, 
eager  to  learn,  and  well-disposed  by  nature.  The 
Brazilians  at  Rouen  expressed  their  astonishment 
that  so  many  tall  men,  wearing  beards,  and  well- 
armed  should  submit  to  the  rule  of  a  child,  when 
these  tall  men  might  have  chosen  one  from 
amongst  themselves  to  be  their  ruler.  They  won- 
dered also  how  it  should  be  that  some  folks  were 
full,  and  even  crammed  with  all  manner  of  com- 
modities, while  many  of  their  brethren — whom 
these  uninstructed  barbarians  styled  their 
"halves" — hunger-bitten  and  lean  with  poverty 
and  famine  begged  at  their  gates — begged  sub- 
missively, though  they  might  have  taken  the 
others  by  the  throat  or  fired  their  houses.  Such 
were  the  childish  notions  of  untutored  minds !  All 
this  and  more  of  their  discourse  Montaigne  re- 
lates, and  he  thinks  their  views  of  things  were 
"  not  too  bad".  But  let  it  pass — "  they  wear  no 
breeches!"  "Mais  quoi!  ils  ne  portent  point  de 
hanlt  dc  chausscs" ;  with  which  word,  a  final 
proof  of  our  superiority  in  civilisation,  the  essay 
suddenly  and  smilingly  closes. 

In  making  his  appearance  from  time  to  time  at 
the  Court,  Montaigne  fulfilled  his  part  as  a  gentle- 
man of  distinction.  It  was  with  him  a  school  of 
observation,  a  furlong  of  the  field  which  he  trav- 
ersed as  a  student  of  humanity.  He  had  his  little 
successes,  his  little  mortifications;  but  he  did  not 

64 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

assiduously  practice  the  courtier's  trade.  His 
manner  of  speech,  he  declares,  had  nothing  in  it 
that  was  facile  or  polished ;  it  was  rough  and  im- 
patient, irregular  and  free.  In  all  set  ceremonious 
forms  no  one  could  be  more  unapt  or  more  un- 
ready. He  professes  that  he  was  wholly  without 
skill  in  the  art  of  pleasing,  diverting,  titillating. 
The  best  story,  he  would  have  us  believe,  grew  dry 
and  lost  its  colours  in  his  handling.  "  Princes," 
he  adds,  with  a  touch  of  his  disdainful  manner, 
"  do  not  much  affect  solid  discourse,  nor  I  to  tell 
stories."  He  chose  rather  to  be  importunate  or 
indiscreet  than  to  be  a  flatterer  or  a  dissembler. 
There  may  have  been,  he  admits,  something  of 
pride  in  his  independence;  perhaps  he  followed 
nature  so  frankly  because  he  wanted  art;  per- 
haps there  was  some  incivility  in  addressing  great 
persons  with  no  more  ceremonious  reserve  than 
he  practised  in  his  home.  But,  in  truth — so  he 
excuses  himself — he  had  not  readiness  of  wit 
enough  to  feign,  or  to  escape  by  an  evasion; 
it  was  better,  after  all,  to  abandon  himself  to  a 
certain  innocent  simplicity  of  speech,  to  speak 
even  as  he  thought,  and  to  leave  the  event  to 
fortune. 

However   the   artistic   instinct   in    Montaigne, 
which  constructed  the  ideal  ego  of  the  Essays  on 
the  foundation  of  his  actual  self,  may  have  re- 
touched the  literal  facts,  we  cannot  doubt  that  any 
5  65 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

humorous    modifications    were    developed    upon 
lines  of  truth.    His  book  is  one  of  good  faith. 

He  has  given  us  no  essay  upon  the  duties  of  the 
magistracy,  duties  from  which  he  seems  to  have 
been  glad  to  escape.  If,  as  he  says,  he  was  ill 
practiced  in  the  ceremonious  modes  of  address,  he 
was  wholly  incapable  of  making  a  speech  in  pub- 
lic, unless,  indeed,  he  adopted  the  least  happy  of 
methods,  that  of  writing  it  out  beforehand,  and 
committing  it  to  a  memory  which  he  had  reason  to 
distrust.  An  administrator  of  the  law  can  hardly 
sum  up  each  case  with  a  "  Que  sgay-je?'' — "  What 
do  I  know?"  And  to  arrive  at  decisions  on  a 
hundred  matters  about  which  the  inquirer  is  not 
deeply  concerned  proves  a  fatiguing  process  to  one 
who  looks  too  precisely  at  the  event,  and  sees 
every  facet  of  every  question.  Nor  had  Mon- 
taigne any  of  the  compensating  pleasure  of  the 
magistrate  who  is  big  with  the  pride  of  place.  He 
did  not  enjoy  the  exercise  of  mere  authority;  he 
did  not  rejoice  in  setting  forth  an  array  of  legal 
learning ;  and  he  was  too  honest  and  independent 
to  allow  a  doubtful  point  to  be  determined  by 
mere  temper  or  partiality.  "  However  right  may 
be  a  judge's  intention,"  says  Montaigne,  "  unless 
he  lays  his  ear  very  close  to  his  heart,  and  few 
people  amuse  themselves  so,  his  disposition  as  a 
friend  or  a  kinsman,  his  feeling  for  beauty  or  his 
desire  of  vengeance,  and  not  motives  as  weighty 

66 


MAGISTRACY    AND    COURT 

as  these,  but  even  the  fortuitous  instinct  which 
makes  us  inchne  to  one  thing  more  than  another, 
and  which  without  the  authority  of  reason  gives 
us  the  power  of  choice  between  two  things  that 
are  equal,  or  a  shadow  of  some  such  vanity,  may 
insinuate  into  his  judgment  the  favouring  or  the 
disfavour  of  a  cause,  and  make  the  balance  dip."  * 
One  pleasure  derived  from  his  position  he  did 
certainly  receive,  and  that  perhaps  in  a  higher 
degree  than  any  other  magistrate  of  France — the 
pleasure  of  smiling  gently  at  the  infirmities  and 
humours  of  his  fellow  magistrates ;  but  some  of 
the  joys  of  irony  are  touched  with  bitterness,  and 
under  the  smile  we  can  now  and  again  discern 
something  of  indignant  pain.  There  was,  for  in- 
stance, that  judge,  who,  when  he  found  a  question 
hang  doubtful  between  such  learned  jurists  as  Bal- 
dus  and  Bartholus,  wrote  on  the  margin  of  his 
book  "  A  question  for  a  friend,"  meaning  that,  in 
a  matter  so  controverted  and  confused,  he  might 
favour  either  party  as  a  personal  regard  inclined 
him ;  and  the  essayist  adds :  "  It  was  only  for 
want  of  wit  and  ability  that  he  did  not  write  '  A 
question  for  a  friend'  on  every  page."  And  that 
president,  who,  in  Montaigne's  presence,  boasted 
that  he  had  piled  up  more  than  two  hundred  pas- 
sages from  far-fetched  authorities  in  one  of  his 

*  Essays,  II,  12. 
67 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

presidential  decisions.  And  that  learned  council- 
lor of  Montaigne's  acquaintance  who,  having  dis- 
gorged a  whole  cargo  of  paragraphs  in  the  highest 
degree  contentious  and  in  an  equal  degree  inept, 
and  having  retired  for  a  moment  from  his  seat  on 
the  bench,  was  heard  in  his  seclusion  muttering 
between  his  teeth  the  words  of  modest  piety,  "  Non 
nobis,  Dominc,  non  nobis,  scd  nomine  tiio  da 
gloriani."  *  Such  incidents  were  some  small  bene- 
factions of  Providence  for  the  trials  of  patience 
endured  by  Montaigne  the  magistrate. 

*  Bonnefon :    Montaigne  ct  scs  Amis,  I,  80,  where  these 
and  other  passages  are  cited. 


68 


CHAPTER   III 

friendship:    la  eoetie 

Among  Montaigne's  colleagues  in  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Bordeaux  was  one  whom  he  placed  high 
above  himself — the  "  Plappy  Warrior",  who  em- 
bodied all  the  virtues  of  manhood  in  a  beautiful 
and  unreproached  youth.  It  was  well  for  Mon- 
taigne's character  that  his  life  had  its  one  ro- 
mance, its  great  hour  of  passion — four  years,  yet 
no  more  than  an  hour — brief,  perfect,  and  never 
to  be  forgotten.  yVnd  this  romance  was  the  best 
of  realities ;  the  passion  was  not  the  love  of  a 
woman,  with  its  possible  touch  of  illusion,  but  the 
virile  passion  of  friendship,  the  hardy  comrade- 
ship of  man  with  man.*  Montaigne  had  a  deep 
and  tender  affection,  an  unwavering  respect  for 
his  father ;  he  knew  that  in  certain  points,  in  pub- 
lic spirit,  in  devotion  to  duty,  and  especially  in  the 
grace  of  chastity,  his  father  was  a  better  man  than 
he.  Yet  he  cannot  but  have  felt  that  his  own  was 
incomparably  the  larger  nature,  that  his  was  the 

*  The  friendship  was  in  fact  of  six  years,  but  Montaigne 
in  a  memorable  passage  names  four,  meaning  perhaps  that 
these  formed  the  period  of  its  perfect  blossoming.  Yet 
from  the  first  the  attraction  was  mutual  and  was  strong. 

69 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

finer  intellect,  the  more  comprehensive  soul.  To- 
wards £;tienne  de  la  Boetie  his  feeling  was  differ- 
ent. Here  whatever  he  could  imagine  of  Roman 
virtue  was  realised;  intellect,  heart,  will — they 
were  all  above  him,  and  all  united  to  form  a  com- 
plete character,  a  character  wholly  directed  to  hon- 
ourable ends.  While  he  himself  wavered  and 
stumbled.  La  Boetie  stood  firm;  while  he  scat- 
tered his  powers  in  the  chance-medley  of  various 
sympathies  and  casual  pleasures,  La  Boetie  con- 
centrated his  high  capacities  in  seeking  and  attain- 
ing the  essential  wisdom,  that  which  lives  in  con- 
duct ;  while  he  was  a  doubter  and  an  intellectual 
dilettante.  La  Boetie  was  already  a  well-equipped 
scholar  and  man  of  science.  And  this  exemplar 
of  what  manhood  at  its  best  might  be  was  young ; 
everything  might  be  hoped  from  him  in  the  future. 
A  being  above  himself  in  all  things ;  yet  an  equal 
through  friendship,  a  comrade,  though  a  superior, 
in  the  pursuit  of  things  of  the  mind. 

To  know  the  man  whom  Montaigne  held  in 
such  high  honour,  the  man  to  whom  he  gave  his 
deep  and  enduring  love,  is  to  know  something  of 
Montaigne  himself.  M.  Bonnefon,  the  editor  of 
La  Boetie's  works,  has  written  the  story  of  his 
life  at  large,  with  adequate  research  and  excellent 
judgment.  Here — with  due  acknowledgment  of 
the  debt  to  M.  Bonnefon  and  his  predecessor,  M. 
Leon  Feugere — it  must  be  told  in  brief. 

70 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

Born  at  Sarlat,  November  i,  1530,  a  little  more 
than  two  years  before  the  birth  of  Montaigne,  son 
of  the  deputy-lieutenant  of  the  seneschal  of  Peri- 
gord,  La  Boetie  at  an  early  age  lost  his  father,  and 
was  educated  under  the  care  of  his  uncle,  an 
ecclesiastic,  to  whom,  as  he  declared  on  his  death- 
bed, he  owed  all  that  he  was  or  could  ever  be. 
Having  been  instructed  by  this  good  uncle  and 
godfather  in  the  humanities,  he  devoted  himself 
with  the  utmost  zeal  to  the  study  of  law  at  the 
ancient  University  of  Orleans,  renowned  for  its 
law-school,  under  the  eminent  legist  Anne  du 
Bourg,  rector  of  the  University,  afterwards  a  Prot- 
estant victim  of  religious  persecution.  La  Boetie 
was  distinguished  not  only  for  his  rare  mastery  of 
the  studies  of  law  and  jurisprudence;  he  was  also 
a  highly  accomplished  worker  in  the  field  of  classi- 
cal philology,  and  found  his  recreation  in  compos- 
ing verses  in  Greek,  in  Latin,  and  in  his  native 
French.  Like  Montaigne  he  was  admitted  as  a 
councillor  of  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux  before 
the  prescribed  age.  His  marriage  with  Marguer- 
ite de  Carle,  sister  of  a  bishop  and  of  a  president, 
seems  to  have  followed  soon  after  his  entrance 
into  the  magistracy.  She  was  widow  of  the 
Seigneur  Jean  d'Arsac,  and  mother  of  two  chil- 
dren. The  verses  Ad  Carliam  Vxoreni,  written 
in  absence  and  anticipating  reunion,  tell  of  his 
great  happiness  in  his  home,  and  of  her  domestic 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

virtues,  nor  have  they  one  touch  of  what  Mon- 
taigne describes  as  "  marital  coldness". 

La  Boetie  was  a  model  councillor,  conscien- 
tious, laborious,  regular  in  his  attendance  at  the 
sittings  of  the  Parliament,  and  winning  the  respect 
and  confidence  of  his  fellow  members,  as  appears 
from  the  duties  which  they  assigned  to  him.  In 
1556  he  was  requested  to  make  a  report  upon  cer- 
tain dramatic  performances  at  the  College  of 
Guyenne — Montaigne's  college — which,  it  was 
feared,  might  contain  some  matter  of  offence.  In 
1560  he  was  despatched  to  petition  the  King  on 
behalf  of  some  more  regular  mode  of  dispensing 
the  salaries  of  magistrates.  He  returned  from 
Paris  successful,  and  entrusted  by  the  Chancellor, 
L'Hopital,  with  counsels  of  wise  moderation  for 
the  more  violent  spirits  of  Bordeaux.  In  the  same 
year  he  accompanied  the  King's  lieutenant,  Burie, 
a  man  after  L'Hopital's  own  heart,  to  the  district 
and  town  of  Agen,  where  a  turbulent  party  of  the 
Reformed  Faith  was  creating  disorder.  It  was  a 
mission  of  conciliation,  requiring  good  temper, 
discretion,  and  firmness.  "  I  have  with  me,"  wrote 
Burie  to  the  King,  "  the  councillor  granted  me  by 
the  Parliament,  by  name  Monsieur  de  La  Boytye, 
who  is  a  very  learned  and  excellent  man."  The 
object  of  establishing  by  mutual  concessions  a 
modus  vivcndi  between  Catholics  and  those  "  of 
the  Religion",  though  the  best  efforts  had  been 

72 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

made,  was  not  really  attained  until  the  edict  of 
pacification  of  January,  1562,  came  to  abate,  for  a 
brief  season,  the  evils  of  religious  intolerance.  On 
the  occasion  of  that  edict  La  Boetie  wrote  certain 
memoirs,  dealing  with  the  troubles  of  the  time, 
which  Montaigne  in  1571,  perhaps  wisely,  but  un- 
fortunately for  later  students  of  history,  did  not 
see  fit  to  publish ;  they  were,  he  says,  too  delicate 
and  refined  to  be  abandoned  to  the  gross  and  thick 
air  of  an  unfavourable  time.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  what  La  Boetie  wrote  was  wisely  temperate 
in  its  spirit. 

The  words  in  which  Montaigne  refers  to  these 
memoirs  were  also  applied  by  him  to  the  famous 
Discourse  Concerning  Voluntary  Servitude  (Dis- 
conrs  dc  la  Servitude  Z'olontaire),  or,  as  it  was 
often  briefly  entitled,  the  Contr'un;  but  this  fell 
in  with  the  militant  designs  of  the  party  of  re- 
ligious reform,  and  it  was  by  them  turned  to 
their  own  account.  Copies  had  been  circulated  in 
manuscript,  and  from  one  of  these  a  considerable 
extract  was  made  in  the  Huguenot  Alarm-clock 
for  Frenchmen  {Reveille-Matin  des  Frangois), 
printed  in  1574,  after  the  massacre  of  St.  Barthol- 
omew, at  Edinburgh  according  to  the  title-page, 
but  in  fact  probably  in  Switzerland.*  La  Boetie's 
complete  work  was  first  published  in  1576  by  the 

*  The   dialogue   in   which  the  extract  appears  had  pre- 
viously, but  in  the  same  year,  appeared  in  Latin. 

73 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Protestant  pastor  of  Geneva,  Simon  Goulard,  in 
the  third  volume  of  his  compilation.  Memoirs  of 
the  state  of  France  under  Charles  IX.  {Memoir es 
de  Vestat  de  France  sous  Charles  neiiviesme) . 
When,  at  a  later  time,  Richelieu  wished  to  read 
the  celebrated  treatise,  it  was  from  this  volume 
that  the  copy  was  supplied  by  his  bookseller  to  the 
Cardinal.* 

What,  then,  is  this  Discourse  Concerning  Vol- 
untary Servitude,  which  Richelieu  desired  to 
read,  which  was  twice  reprinted  in  a  modernised 
form  in  the  days  of  the  French  Revolution,  and 
which  Lamennais,  contributing  to  the  publication 
an  impassioned  preface,  afterwards  edited?  When 
did  La  Boetie  write  the  Discourse,  and  with  what 
design?  Montaigne  himself  has  added  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  ascertaining  the  precise  date  of  author- 
ship. In  the  first  edition  of  the  Essays,  that  of 
1580  (and  the  words  were  repeated  in  the  text  of 
1588)  his  statement  is  a  positive  one :  "  La  Boetie 
wrote  it,  by  way  of  an  essay,  in  his  earliest  youth, 
not  having  yet  attained  his  eighteenth  year."  In 
the  copy  of  the  edition  of  1588,  which  Montaigne 


*  I  am  indebted  for  some  of  these  details  to  M.  Bonne- 
fon,  but  my  own  shelves  supply  me  with  copies  of  the 
Reveille-Matin  and  Goulard's  compilation  in  the  second 
edition,  1577-1578.  This  second  edition  appeared  in  two 
forms,  distinguishable  by  the  type.  The  first  edition  is 
so  rare  that  M.  Bonnefon  was  unable  to  see  a  copy. 

74 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

furnished  with  manuscript  additions  and  correc- 
tions, afterwards  embodied  by  Mile,  de  Gournay 
in  the  text  of  1595,  he  erased  the  word  "eigh- 
teenth" and  substituted  for  it  "  sixteenth".  He 
had  at  first  purposed  to  append  La  Boetie's  Dis- 
course to  his  own  essay  on  Friendship.  Seeing, 
however,  that  it  had  already  appeared  in  print,  and 
in  a  volume,  which,  while  it  included  documents 
of  the  other  side,  was  essentially  anti-Catholic  and 
polemical,  Montaigne  decided  to  substitute  for  his 
dead  friend's  prose  treatise  a  collection,  twenty- 
nine  in  all,  of  his  French  sonnets :  "  Because  I 
have  found  that  this  work  has  been  since  put  forth, 
and  to  an  ill  end,  by  those  who  seek  to  trouble  and 
change  the  condition  of  our  government,  not 
caring  whether  they  are  likely  to  amend  it,  and 
because  they  have  mixed  up  his  work  with  other 
writings  ground  in  their  own  mill,  I  have  re- 
frained from  giving  it  a  place  here."  He  adds, 
with  a  view  to  prevent  any  misconception  of  the 
author's  character  or  principles,  that  the  theme  of 
his  Discourse  was  handled  by  him  in  his  "  in- 
fancy" (enfance) — a  word  often  used  by  Mon- 
taigne for  "  youth" — and  that  only  by  way  of  ex- 
ercitation,  "  as  a  common  theme  that  has  been 
hacknied  by  a  thousand  writers".  Montaigne 
makes  no  question  but  that  his  friend  believed  as 
true  what  he  wrote,  for  he  was  so  conscientious 
that  he  would  not  lie  even  in  sport.  "  I  know 
75 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

moreover,"  the  Essayist  proceeds,  "  that,  had  it 
been  in  his  choice,  he  would  rather  have  been  born 
in  Venice  than  in  Sarlat,  and  with  good  reason. 
But  he  had  another  maxim  sovereignly  imprinted 
in  his  soul,  to  obey  and  very  religiously  to  submit 
to  the  laws  under  which  he  was  born.  There  never 
was  a  better  citizen,  nor  one  more  attached  to  his 
country's  repose;  never  one  more  hostile  to  the 
commotions  and  innovations  of  his  time;  he 
would  much  sooner  have  employed  his  powers  in 
extinguishing  than  in  adding  fuel  to  these.  His 
spirit  was  modelled  to  the  pattern  of  ages  other 
than  ours."  * 

It  may  be  that  in  reducing  the  age  of  the  writer 
of  the  Discourse  from  eighteen  to  sixteen,  Mon- 
taigne desired  to  diminish  the  responsibility  of  La 
Boetie  for  the  opinions  and  sentiments  therein  ex- 
pressed. He  wishes  it  to  be  regarded  as  the  bril- 
liant declamation  of  a  young  student  on  the  gen- 
eral topic  of  monarchical  tyranny,  and  as  having 
no  relation  to  contemporary  events  in  France. 
The  historian  De  Thou,  on  the  contrary,  connects 
the  origin  of  the  Contrhm  with  the  feelings 
aroused  in  La  Boetie's  spirit  by  the  revolt  of  the 
Gabelle,  in  1548,  and  its  savage  punishment  at  the 
hands  of  Montmorenci.  La  Boetie  in  1548  was 
eighteen  years  of  age,  and,  according  to  De  Thou, 

*  Essays,  I,  27. 
76 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

the  Contrun  was  written  one  year  later.  How- 
ever this  may  have  been,  there  can  be  no  douljt 
that  it  was  rehandlcci,  or  at  least  retouched,  at  a 
subsequent  date.  Ronsard,  Ba'if,  and  Du  Bellay 
are  eulogised  in  the  Contr'tin  for  having  renewed 
or  recreated  French  poetry.  TJic  Franciadc  {La 
Franciadc)  of  the  first  of  these  poets  is  mentioned 
with  special  honour.  Du  Bellay  had  published 
nothing  before  1549.  Baif,  two  years  younger 
than  La  Boetie,  was  unknown  as  a  poet  at  the 
earlier  date  given  by  Montaigne.  The  first  four 
books  of  TJic  Franciadc  appeared  in  1572;  the 
design  of  that  epic,  of  which  no  more  than  a 
fragment  was  ever  accomplished,  had  not  been 
conceived  until  about  1552.* 

The  Discourse  Concerning  Voluntary  Servi- 
tude has  been  described  by  Sainte-Beuve  as  no 
more  than  a  classical  declamation,  a  masterpiece 
of  a  student's  second  year  in  rhetoric.  But  that 
great  critic  did  not  fail  to  applaud  its  more  power- 
ful pages,  its  passages  of  vigorous  and  progressive 
movement,  its  eloquent  outbreaks  of  indignation, 
and  the  very  remarkable  gift  of  style  w^hich  it  ex- 
hibits— "  we  feel  the  presence  of  something  of  a 

*  I  recite  part  of  M.  Bonnefon's  argument,  Montaigne 
et  ses  Amis,  I,  157.  Bayle  St.  John  had  discussed  these 
points  in  1858;  and,  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  the  date, 
had  considered  the  question  of  quotations  in  the  Contr'un 
from  Amyot's  Plutarch. 

77 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

poet  in  a  great  number  of  its  felicitous  images." 
The  question  whether  La  Boetie  wrote  the  Dis- 
course merely  as  an  academic  exercise,  suggested 
by  the  ideal  of  ancient  liberty,  or  whether  he  wrote 
with  genuine  conviction  and  genuine  passion,  hav- 
ing his  eye  turned  upon  the  condition  of  contem- 
porary France,  is  one  of  curious  psychological  in- 
terest. We  might  imagine  it  to  have  been  written 
by  some  eloquent  young  Girondin  soon  after  1789. 
It  might  almost  have  been  the  work  of  some 
youthful  Shelley  in  the  days  of  the  English  politi- 
cal reaction  against  Revolutionary  ideals.  But 
La  Boetie  was  no  Shelley ;  he  accepted  the  duties 
of  a  loyal  subject  and  citizen  under  a  monarchy 
which  had  grown  shameless  in  vice.  He  was  a 
sincere  Catholic,  if  a  good  deal  also  of  the  antique 
Stoic  philosopher.  He  was  unquestionably  a 
member  of  the  middle  party  of  compromise  and 
of  partial  yet  enlightened  toleration.  How  shall 
we  interpret  his  outcry  against  tyranny  in  the  light 
of  his  conduct  as  a  man  of  action? 

A  reader  of  the  Contr'un,  especially  a  reader 
who  is  of  another  age  and  another  nationality 
than  those  of  the  writer,  cannot  pretend  to  any 
authoritative  decision.  He  can  only  record  his 
own  impression.  Montaigne,  in  admitting  that 
his  friend  would  have  chosen  to  be  born  in  Venice 
rather  than  in  Sarlat,  seems  to  imply  that  La 
Boetie  was  a  theoretical  republican.      And  the 

78 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

work  of  a  theoretical  republican  the  Contr'im 
surely  is.  But  a  theoretical  republican  may  be  a 
loyal  citizen  under  an  established  monarchy.  At 
the  same  time  he  may  hold  up  before  himself  and 
others  an  ideal  of  a  better  and  happier  state,  not 
in  the  belief  that  it  lies  within  the  range  of  what 
we  term  practical  politics,  but  partly  as  a  prophecy, 
and  partly  as  a  guiding  light  to  conduct  in  the 
limited  sphere  of  what  is  practicable.  A  high  en- 
thusiasm for  the  abstraction  "  liberty"  may  con- 
dense itself — and  to  good  purpose — into  some 
counsel  of  wise  moderation  in  the  little  matters 
of  the  day  or  the  hour. 

La  Boetie  expressly  dismisses  from  considera- 
tion the  question  of  the  relative  merits  of  other 
forms  of  government  as  compared,  with  a  mon- 
archy. He  proclaims  his  belief  that  the  kings  of 
France  have  always  been  so  good  in  peace,  so  val- 
iant in  war,  that,  apart  from  any  hereditary  right, 
they  would  seem  to  have  been  chosen  by  God  to 
be  the  rulers  of  his  people.  It  was  open  to  others, 
if  they  should  please,  to  give  to  this  profession  an 
ironical  significance,  and  undoubtedly  the  whole 
tendency  of  the  Discourse  was  to  arouse  a  critical 
spirit  with  reference  to  monarchical  government. 
The  Contr'iin  is  the  cry  of  a  young  and  ardent 
spirit  against  the  tyranny  of  the  One  over  the 
Many;  the  cry  of  a  lover  of  humanity  on  behalf 
of  freedom,  of  freedom  as  a  natural  right,  and  one 

79 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

which  reason  justifies.  All  men  are  born  free  and 
equal,  equal  at  least  in  the  essential  things,  and  yet 
almost  all  men  find  themselves  enchanted,  and 
bound  in  a  voluntary  servitude.  The  Discourse  is 
the  expansion  of  this  and  of  one  or  two  other 
ideas.  It  is  often  rhetorical,  often  declamatory ; 
but  a  writer,  and  especially  a  writer  who  is  young, 
may  be  at  the  same  time  declamatory  and  very 
much  in  earnest.  The  advantage  as  well  as  the 
disadvantage  of  youth  often  lies  in  the  dominat- 
ing power  of  a  few  simple  ideas,  which  to  one 
experienced  in  dealing  with  concrete  affairs  may 
seem  somewhat  hollow,  yet  which  prove  to  be 
powers  with  mankind. 

How  is  this,  cries  La  Boetie,  that  an  infinite 
number  of  men  are  not  governed  but  tyrannised 
over  by  one  man,  not  a  Hercules,  not  a  Samson, 
rather  a  poor  mannikin,  often  the  most  cowardly 
and  effeminate  creature  in  the  nation,  unaccus- 
tomed to  the  dust  of  battle,  scarcely  even  ac- 
quainted with  the  sands  of  the  tilting-field;  one 
incapable  of  commanding  men  by  native  force,  but 
lost  in  vile  submission  to  the  meanest  and  silliest 
creatures  of  the  other  sex?  So  La  Boetie  de- 
claims. Is  it  that  men  are  cowards?  Can  it  be 
that  millions  of  men  fear  such  a  feeble  being  as 
this?  Such  a  notion  is  incredible.  The  vice  which 
induces  men  to  be  slaves  must  be  another  and  a 
baser  vice  than  cowardice.      To  effect  the  down- 

80 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

fall  of  a  tyrant  no  struggle  is  required.  To  dis- 
regard him,  to  leave  him  isolated  and  therefore 
powerless  is  enough.  The  nation  that  accepts 
servitude  is  in  truth  its  own  enslaver.  In  order  to 
possess  freedom  men  have  but  to  desire  it. 

Has  Nature,  then,  whose  purposes  are  so  benefi- 
cent, and  who  has  implanted  in  our  breasts  de- 
sires for  all  things  that  we  need,  has  she  erred  in 
one  point,  and  left  us  with  so  feeble  a  desire  for 
freedom  that  it  can  be  extinguished  by  the  first 
breath  of  unpropitious  chance?  Men  are  pillaged, 
their  sons  are  despatched  to  the  shambles  of  tyran- 
nic wars,  their  daughters  are  betrayed  to  gratify 
the  royal  sensuality,  and  yet  men  refuse  to  be  free. 
The  tyrant,  who  thus  abuses  them,  has  but  two 
eyes,  two  hands,  and  one  body,  while  they  are  the 
myriads  of  a  hundred  cities,  of  a  thousand  fields. 
Let  them  but  resolve  to  cease  from  servitude,  let 
them  merely  refuse  to  sustain  this  oppression,  and 
it  will  totter,  fall,  and  be  shattered  like  a  colossus 
whose  base  has  been  removed. 

There  exists  in  every  soul  of  man  a  ray  of  the 
light  of  reason,  which  is  the  gift  of  Nature.  And 
nothing  is  more  manifest  than  that  Nature  de- 
signed man  for  freedom.  Men  are  all  fashioned 
in  the  same  mould,  compounded  of  the  same  clay, 
in  order  that  they  may  know  that  they  are  breth- 
ren. Equality  is  the  true  ground  of  fraternity; 
or  if  one  man  be  born  with  certain  gifts  superior 
6  8i 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

to  those  of  another,  these  endowments  are  granted 
only  that  he  may  the  better  serve  his  fellows.  And 
as  fraternity  rests  upon  equality,  so  liberty,  in  the 
order  of  Nature,  rises  from  the  foundation  of  both 
of  these.  Over  his  equal  and  his  brother  no  man 
can  naturally  desire  to  lord  it.  Even  the  beasts 
themselves  will  fight  to  maintain  their  freedom; 
even  the  beasts  themselves  languish  in  servitude. 
What  freeborn  people,  except  it  be  the  people  of 
Israel,  who  petitioned  for  a  king,  would  yield  to 
slavery  unless  it  were  imposed  upon  them  by  force 
or  by  fraud?  Too  often,  indeed,  the  fraud  has 
been  of  their  own  devising;  they  have  laboured 
to  deceive  themselves ;  until,  as  years  roll  on,  the 
later  generations  lose  the  very  memory  of  free- 
dom, lose  the  very  consciousness  of  servitude,  and 
accept  their  miserable  condition  as  an  unalterable 
natural  fact. 

It  is  custom,  then,  w^iich  lies  upon  us  like  a 
frost  of  death ;  it  is  custom  v^'hich  proves  itself 
to  be  stronger  than  nature.  The  most  wicked  citi- 
zen of  Venice  could  never  wish  to  be  a  king;  the 
most  noble-minded  citizen  born  under  the  rule  of 
the  Turk  could  hardly  imagine  freedom  in  his 
dreams.  An  infant  in  the  country  of  the  Cim- 
merians, brought  forth  during  the  six  months  of 
darkness,  how  could  eyes  of  his  conceive  or  desire 
the  light  of  the  sun?  Yet  under  the  worst  des- 
potism some  few  finely-constituted  souls,  one  here 

82 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

and  another  there — some  student  among  his 
books,  some  young  man  enamoured  of  antique 
ideals — feel  the  weight  of  the  yoke,  and  long  to 
be  emancipated  from  it.  They  are,  however,  so 
isolated  that  each  cannot  discover  his  fellows,  and 
each  alone  is  helpless.  Nevertheless,  bold  enter- 
prises on  behalf  of  freedom,  for  which  a  few  cour- 
ageous spirits  are  gathered  together,  concerned  for 
liberty  and  careless  of  self-aggrandisement,  are 
seldom  fruitless  of  good. 

Add  to  the  deadening  influence  of  custom  in 
perpetuating  a  voluntary  servitude  the  fact  that 
under  a  despotism  men  lose  their  virtue,  their  val- 
iance,  their  gladness  in  the  contest,  and,  growing 
cowardly  and  efifeminate,  they  cease  to  be  capable 
of  great  things.  The  tyrant,  w^ell  aware  of  this, 
"  sugars  servitude  with  an  envenomed  sweet- 
ness"; he  turns  the  nation  away  from  the  career 
of  arms;  surrounds  himself  with  foreign  mercen- 
aries; amuses  his  subjects  with  theatres,  sports, 
farces,  spectacles,  gladiators,  strange  beasts, 
medals,  pictures,  and  other  like  seductive  ano- 
dynes. Meanwhile  the  bribed  populace  holds  its 
true  friends  in  suspicion,  and  leans  trustfully  to- 
wards its  betrayer.  Give  largess  to  the  greed  of 
the  populace,  and  it  wall  not  quit  its  trough  to 
acquire  the  liberty  of  Plato's  republic.  Nor  are 
the  bribes  only  of  a  material  kind;  the  soul  re- 
ceives its  pious  sops;  religion  itself  is  converted 
83 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

into  the  patron  and  defender  of  tyranny.  The 
King  is  a  sacred,  secluded,  unapproachable  per- 
son ;  or  he  comes  forth,  as  a  minister  of  heaven, 
to  work  miraculous  cures  and  to  impose  upon  the 
superstition  of  the  adoring  crowd. 

Some  persons  may  erroneously  imagine  that 
the  power  of  a  tyrant  resides  in  his  guards,  his 
archers,  his  armed  footmen,  his  troops  of  cavalry. 
No;  his  business  is  achieved  for  him  by  four  or 
five,  or  some  half-dozen  agents,  the  accomplices  of 
his  cruelty,  or  pandars  of  his  pleasures.  Six  hun- 
dred others  profit  by  these  six;  six  thousand,  by 
the  six  hundred ;  and  thus,  in  the  end,  millions 
are  attached  by  a  chain,  like  the  chain  of  Jupiter, 
to  the  tyrant's  throne.  His  subjects  are  ingen- 
iously and  successfully  employed  to  enslave  one 
another.  But,  alas !  for  the  life  of  a  despot's 
favourite,  a  life  to  be  wondered  at  for  its  wicked- 
ness, and  often  to  be  pitied  for  its  folly.  The 
peasant,  bound  to  the  furrow,  is  freer  than  such 
an  one,  who  is  not  even  the  master  of  his  own 
thoughts.  His  end  is  destruction,  either  at  the 
hands  of  his  lord  or  of  that  lord's  successor.  Nor 
is  the  tyrant's  own  lot  an  enviable  one;  it  is 
haunted  by  suspicion  and  filled  with  secret  alarms ; 
it  is  condemned  to  solitude,  for  with  him  the  basis 
of  true  comradeship  or  friendship  does  not  exist. 

"  Friendship,"  writes  La  Boetie,  "  is  a  sacred  name,  it  is 
a  holy  thing;    it  never  subsists  except  between  persons  of 

84 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

true  worth ;  it  arises  from  mutual  esteem  alone ;  it  is  main- 
tained not  so  much  by  any  profit  as  by  a  life  that  is  ex- 
cellent. That  which  gives  a  friend  assurance  of  his  fellow 
is  the  knowledge  of  his  integrity ;  the  pledges  he  proffers 
are  goodness  of  nature,  faith,  and  constancy.  Where  there 
is  cruelty,  where  there  is  disloyalty,  where  there  is  in- 
justice, friendship  cannot  be.  Between  evil  men,  when 
they  gather  together,  there  may  be  a  complot;  companion- 
ship there  can  be  none ;  there  is  mutual  fear,  not  mutual 
support;    such  men  are  not  friends  but  accomplices." 

Such  reduced  to  narrow  dimensions,  which  do 
not  admit  of  Greek  or  Roman  or  Persian  authori- 
ties, examples,  and  anecdotes — the  fashion  of  the 
Renaissance — but  with  something  of  its  declama- 
tory tone  preserved,  is  the  Discourse  Concerning 
Voluntary  Servitude,  and  this  Discourse  it  was, 
which,  read  in  a  manuscript  copy  before  he  had 
made  acquaintance  with  the  author,  first  attracted 
Montaigne  to  the  writer.  The  analysis  of  the 
sources  of  a  despot's  power  is  much  more  than 
mere  declamation.  In  its  spirit  the  little  treatise 
curiously  resembles  the  temper  of  Shelley  when 
he  wrote  The  Revolt  of  Islam,  but  the  part  of 
Cythna  in  revolutionary  emancipation  had  not  yet 
been  conceived.  Was  it  likeness  or  unlikeness 
that  drew  Montaigne  to  La  Boetie?  "  The  Dis- 
course was  shown  to  me,"  Montaigne  writes, 
"  long  before  I  had  seen  him,  and  it  gave  me  my 
first  acquaintance  with  his  name,  thus  preparing 
the  way  for  the  friendship  which  we  cherished  as 

85 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

long  as  God  willed,  a  friendship  so  entire  and  so 
perfect  that  certainly  the  like  is  hardly  to  be  found 
in  story,  and  amongst  modern  men  no  sign  of  any 
such  is  seen.  So  many  things  must  concur  to 
build  up  such  a  fabric  that  it  is  much  if  fortune 
should  bring  the  like  into  existence  once  in  three 
ages."  * 

La  Boetie,  whose  philological  studies  con- 
nected him  with  scholars,  whose  French  verses 
might  naturally  bring  him  into  relation  with  the 
writers  soon  to  be  the  luminaries  of  the  Pleiad, 
seems  to  have  had  a  genius  for  friendship.  To 
his  fellow  student  in  law  and  in  the  humanities 
at  Orleans,  Lambert  Daneau,  he  addresses  some 
verses  which  tell  of  the  maturity  of  Daneau's 
mind  under  the  appearance  of  his  flourishing 
youth.  Montaigne's  biographer,  M.  Bonnefon, 
imagines  the  two  young  men  pacing  to  and  fro 
among  the  quincunxes  and  arbours  of  the  garden 
which  Antoine  Brachet,  Daneau's  uncle,  himself 
a  scholar  and  something  of  a  poet,  possessed  in 
the  outskirts  of  Orleans.  If  this  is  no  fancy,  it 
is  to  be  feared  that  the  early  friendship  was  sun- 
dered by  religious  differences,  for  Daneau  in  later 
years  became  an  ardent  combatant  with  the  pen 
upon  the  side  of  the  Reformed  Faith,  f    The  poet 

*  Essays,  I,  27. 

t  M.  Bonnefon  conjectures  that  La  Boetie's  Discourse 
may  have  been  written  at  the  University  of  Orleans,  that 

86 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

Baif  was  certainly  a  friend  of  La  Boetie,  and  he 
could  not  fail  to  communicate  to  one  who  was 
himself  a  poet  some  of  the  aspirations  and  designs 
of  the  Pleiad.  With  another  member  of  that 
brilliant  group,  the  Hellenist  Jean  Dorat,  he  must 
also  have  been  acquainted,  for  he  composed  a 
moralising  Latin  distich  On  the  Horologe  of 
Marguerite  de  Laval,  and  Marguerite  was 
Dorat's  first  wife.  There  are  words  in  the 
Contr'un  which  may,  indeed,  refer  only  to  the 
grace  of  Ronsard's  verses,  but  which  suggest  a 
personal  acquaintance.  La  Boetie  came  forward 
with  a  spirited  defence  of  the  great  poet,  when 
one  of  his  fellow  councillors  of  Bordeaux  main- 
tained that  Ronsard  would  be  better  employed  in 
singing  the  praises  of  God  than  those  of  earthly 
love.  There  are  many  more  ways  of  praising  God 
than  one,  declares  La  Boetie  in  his  Latin  epigram ; 
let  Ronsard  celebrate  Him  in  his  own  divine 
verse;  the  councillor,  Gaillard  de  Laval,  may,  for 
his  part,  praise  God  hardly  less  by  silence.  The 
enthusiastic  admiration  of  "  the  great  La  Boetie", 

the  influence  of  Anne  du  Bourg  may  have  assisted  in  its 
inspiration,  and  that  it  may  have  reached  the  Huguenots 
through  Lambert  Daneau.  The  "  Longa",  addressed  in 
the  Discourse,  has  been  identified  by  M.  Dezeimeris  as 
Guillaume  de  Lur,  a  councillor  first  of  Bordeaux,  after- 
wards of  Paris,  a  lover  of  letters,  the  friend  of  Rabelais 
and  of  Buchanan. 

87 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

a  man  "  possessing  every  gift",  one  who  "  will 
surpass  in  every  direction  what  is  hoped  from 
him",  expressed  by  the  eminent  scholar  Julius 
Caesar  Scaliger  is  only  one  more  proof  of  the  uni- 
versal esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by  his  con- 
temporaries.* 

The  desire  for  mutual  acquaintance  was  com- 
mon to  La  Boetie  and  Montaigne,  "  We  sought 
each  other  before  we  met,  and  by  the  reports  we 
heard  one  of  another,  which  wrought  upon  our 
affection  more  than  in  reason  reports  should  do, 
I  think  by  some  secret  ordinance  of  Heaven."  At 
length,  by  accident  at  some  great  city  entertain- 
ment, they  found  each  other.  Montaigne  was  in 
an  unusual  degree  open  to  the  impression  of  per- 
sonal beauty,  and  La  Boetie's  face  was  not  beau- 
tiful, in  the  common  acceptation  of  that  word.  It 
might  even  be  called  the  reverse  of  beautiful,  but 
the  irregularity  of  features  was  of  that  kind  which 
Montaigne  describes  as  a  superficial  lack  of 
beauty;  it  had  a  character  which  imposed  itself 
decisively  on  the  observer,  yet  one  about  which 
men's  opinions  may  differ,  one  certainly  which 
does  not  react  in  any  prejudicial  way  upon  the  dis- 
position of  its  possessor's  mind.  Not  for  a  mo- 
ment   was    any    check    interposed    in    the    swift 

*  See  Bonnefon's  Montaigne  et  ses  Amis,  I,  210;  and 
Dezeimeris,  De  la  Renaissance  des  Lettres  a  Bordeaux  au 
XV Je  siecle. 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

approach  of  spirit  to  spirit  and  heart  to  heart : 
"  We  found  ourselves  so  mutually  taken  with  one 
another,  so  well  acquainted,  so  bound  by  obliga- 
tions each  to  the  other,  that  thenceforward  noth- 
ing was  as  near  us  as  each  was  to  each."  The 
feeling  had  its  springs  in  something  deeper  than 
any  reason  that  could  be  assigned  to  explain  it. 
The  essential  reason  was,  as  Montaigne  puts  it  in 
a  celebrated  phrase — "  Parce  que  c'cstoit  luy; 
parcc  que  c'estoit  mor — "  Because  it  zvas  he;  he- 
cause  it  zvas  /." 

In  this  alliance  La  Boetie  was  the  Horatio, 
with  blood  and  judgment  well  commingled;  al- 
ready in  harmony  with  himself  and  his  ideals  of 
duty.  Montaigne  was  the  Hamlet,  greater  by  in- 
tellect, and  imagination,  and  manifold  sympathies, 
but  still  with  powers  unharmonized ;  less  stead- 
fast and  indomitable  of  will,  and  by  no  means 
foursquare  in  complete  moral  rectitude.  The  con- 
ditions of  a  perfect  friendship,  absolute  unity  and 
absolute  independence,  seem  to  have  been  fulfilled 
in  the  highest  possible  degree.  A  soft,  assenting, 
yielding  image  of  himself — himself  upon  a  lesser 
scale — would  have  left  Montaigne  indifferent,  or 
would  have  teased  him  out  of  patience.  He  en- 
joyed the  contest  of  intellects,  the  encounter  of 
various  moods.  But  underneath  that  diversity 
which  made  the  commerce  of  mind  with  mind  in- 
teresting and  profitable,  lay  a  union  that  was  far 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

more  than  any  community  of  tastes  and  interests, 
a  union  that  had  in  it  something  almost  of  mys- 
tical passion,  measureless  truth,  a  calm  wjth  a 
radiance  at  its  centre,  a  deep  security,  as  if  rest 
had  been  found,  and  were  sustained  on  those  eter- 
nal pillars  which  upbear  the  heaven  and  the  earth. 
Montaigne,  the  sceptic,  the  egoist,  as  he  is  called, 
— and,  in  truth,  he  had  something  of  each  in  his 
composition — describes  this  friendship  in  such 
words  as  are  usually  reserved  for  the  exaltations 
of  religious  ardour;  the  varied  interests  which 
make  up  friendship  melt  together  into  "  I  know 
not  what  quintessence  which,  having  seized  all  my 
will,  led  it  to  plunge  and  lose  itself  in  his ;  which, 
having  seized  all  his  will,  led  it  to  plunge  and  lose 
itself  in  mine  with  an  equal  hunger  and  concur- 
rence. I  may  indeed  say  '  lose',  for  nothing,  his 
or  mine,  was  reserved  as  part  of  a  separate  and 
peculiar  existence." 

Among  La  Boetie's  Latin  poems  are  three  ad- 
dressed to  his  friend,  and  it  is  clear  from  these 
that  the  elder  brother — for  the  name  of  "  brother" 
was  accepted  by  them,  with  a  deeper  meaning 
than  that  of  mere  kinship — gave  of  his  best  to  the 
younger  by  assuming  a  certain  authority  over  him 
as  what  we  may  style  the  guardian  of  his  virtue. 
In  one  of  these  poems  the  name  of  Jean  de  Belot, 
another  friend  of  La  Boetie,  is  associated  with 
that   of   Montaigne.      It   expresses    a    mood    of 

90 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

fatigue  and  despondency  in  the  writer  caused  by 
the  perpetually  renewed  troubles  of  France.  We 
hear  La  Boetie's  sigh  for  what  Southey  and  Cole- 
ridge afterwards  imagined  as  a  Pantisocracy  on 
the  banks  of  the  Susquehanna.  These  strange 
lands,  these  vast  new  realms  discovered  by  sea- 
men across  the  main,  do  they  not  invite  a  weary 
man  to  peaceful  fields  and  happier  duties?  And 
yet  even  there  the  thought  of  his  country's  ruin 
would  pursue  him.  Of  the  verses  addressed  to 
Montaigne  alone,  one  is  lyrical ;  it  is  a  summons 
to  the  choice  of  the  better  and  the  harder  way,  the 
way  not  of  pleasure  transitory  and  meretricious, 
but  of  labour  and  duty  with  the  loins  girt  and  the 
lit  lamp : 

"  To  labour  nothing  Jove  denies, 
For  he  the  overhanging  skies, 
The  wandering  waves,  the  land, 
Rules  with  no  easeful  hand. 

"What  state  is  his  who  toileth  not? 
Sunk   in   long  sleep,   of   men   forgot, 
Buried  he  draws  his  breath. 
Foretasting  his  own  death." 

Such  is  the  spirit  of  La  Boetie's  call  to  duty. 
Passionate  at  times  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasures, 
Montaigne  at  other  times  revived  in  manhood  the 
feeling  of  some  who  had  known  him  in  his  school- 
boy days;  the  boy,  they  supposed,  was  not  likely 
to  do  much  that  was  ill,  but  would  he  do  anything 

91 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

that  was  good  ?  Through  his  superficial  indolence 
or  nonchalance  Montaigne's  energy  of  intellect 
and  heart  were  discerned  by  La  Boetie;  he  had 
faith  in  great,  untold  possibilities  of  good;  he 
summoned  his  younger  comrade  to  show  himself 
for  what  he  really  was;  and  if  gratitude  were 
permissible  between  such  friends  as  these,  Mon- 
taigne could  not  but  feel  grateful  to  one  who 
knew  him  aright  and  who  constrained  him  to  be 
loyal  to  his  better  self. 

"  He  wrote,"  says  Montaigne,  "  an  excellent 
Latin  satire,  which  has  been  published,  in  which 
he  excuses  and  explains  the  precipitancy  of  our 
mutual  intelligence,  coming,  as  it  did,  so  sud- 
denly to  perfection.  Having  so  short  a  term  of 
duration,  having  begun  so  late  ( for  we  were  both 
men  full-grown,  and  he  some  years  the  elder), 
there  was  no  time  to  lose,  nor  were  we  bound  to 
conform  to  the  pattern  of  those  soft,  regular 
friendships  which  require  so  many  precautions  of 
long,  anticipatory  converse."  The  "  Latin  satire" 
is  the  third  of  La  Boetie's  poems  addressed  Ad 
Michaehim  Montamim.  It  tells  in  the  opening 
lines  of  that  swift  mutual  intelligence  between  the 
two  friends  which  is  referred  to  by  the  Essayist. 
Many  of  those  who  are  named  prudent — so  the 
poem  begins — hold  in  suspect  a  friendship  that 
has  not  been  tried  by  years,  and  by  the  stress  and 
strain  of  life: 

92 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

"  But  us  a  love  scarce  elder  than  a  year 
Joins,   and   already   love   is  at  the   full. 

"  Nor  do  I  fear,  let  but  the  fates  be  kind, 
That  they,  our  children's  children,  will  decline 
To  vk^rite  our  names  in  that  illustrious  roll 
Of  famous  friends." 

Some  trees  refuse  to  be  grafted  with  certain 
others ;  and  again  some  trees  accept  the  graft  on 
the  instant,  through  an  occult  kinship  of  nature; 
in  a  moment  of  time  the  buds  swell  and  cohere, 
and  with  a  single  desire  conjoin  to  bring  forth 
fruit : 

"  Thee,  thee,  Montaigne,  through  every  chance  and  change, 
Nature  omnipotent  hath  joined  with  me, 
Nature,  and  that  most  dear  constraint  of  love — 
Virtue." 

And  so  La  Boetie  passes  on  to  his  lessons  and 
exhortations  as  to  conduct,  warning  his  friend 
against  the  special  dangers  of  his  own  tempera- 
ment, and  holding  up  before  his  imagination  the 
virile  joys  of  self-restraint,  and  the  happiness  of 
the  hearth  and  home. 

In  his  essay  on  Friendship  Montaigne  com- 
pares the  love  of  friend  for  friend  with  the  other 
chief  alliances  of  heart  with  heart,  and  gives  to 
friendship  the  place  of  pre-eminence.  The  rela- 
tion of  a  son  to  a  father  may  be  of  great  beauty  in 
its  kind — and  no  one  had  a  more  gracious  father 

93 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

than  he — but  a  father  cannot  communicate  all  his 
secret  thoughts  to  a  son,  nor  can  a  son  reprove  his 
father,  while  reproof  is  one  of  the  most  valuable 
offices  of  a  perfect  friendship.  The  interests  of 
brothers  are  often  detached  or  even  opposed;  they 
jostle  and  hinder  each  the  other.  And  a  man's 
father  or  his  brother  may  happen  to  be  of  a  hu- 
mour quite  contrary  to  his  own.  The  passion  for 
a  woman  is,  indeed,  a  more  active  and  eager  fire 
than  the  temperate  affection  of  friends,  but  its 
flame  is  less  steady  and  constant.  In  marriage, 
when  it  has  once  been  entered  on,  there  is  a  sense 
of  constraint  and  even  compulsion.  Montaigne 
in  the  essay  on  Experience  describes  himself  as 
so  enamoured  of  freedom  that  were  he  interdicted 
from  access  to  some  corner  of  the  Indies,  it  would 
take  from  him  a  little  of  his  ease.  Moreover,  mar- 
riage, a  bargain  seldom  based  merely  on  affection, 
includes  many  subordinate  interests  and  relations 
which  may  tangle  and  intertwist  disagreeably 
with  the  chief  relation.  Nor  are  women  often 
capable  of  that  equal  communication  with  a  man 
which  is  essential  to  a  high  and  enduring  friend- 
ship. Yet  Montaigne  can  imagine  a  marriage, 
freely  contracted,  founded  upon  love  alone,  in 
which  the  soul  might  have  entire  fruition,  and 
the  soul's  companion,  the  body,  might  also  have 
its  part  in  the  alliance ;  and  such  a  marriage,  he 
asserts,  would  in  truth  be  the  most  full  and  per- 

94 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

feet  form  of  friendship.  Only,  he  adds,  "  it  is 
without  example  that  this  sex  has  ever  yet  arrived 
at  such  perfection."  La  Boetie  was  not  merely 
of  what  Montaigne  esteemed  the  nobler  sex,  he 
was  the  greatest  and  noblest  among  the  men  of 
his  time :  "  The  greatest  spirit  I  ever  knew,  I 
mean  for  the  natural  parts  of  the  soul,  and  the 
best  endowed,  was  Stephen  de  La  Boetie;  his 
was,  indeed,  a  full  soul,  showing  in  every  way  an 
aspect  of  beauty ;  a  soul  of  the  old  stamp,  and  one 
which  would  have  produced  great  effects,  had  his 
fortune  so  pleased,  seeing  that  to  those  great  nat- 
ural parts  he  had  added  much  by  learning  and 
study."  *  With  such  a  friend  mere  good  offices 
and  mutual  benefits,  which  are  the  supports  of 
ordinary  friendship,  did  not  deserve  so  much  as 
to  be  mentioned.  Between  such  a  pair  of  friends 
there  could  be  no  lending  nor  borrowing,  no  giv- 
ing nor  taking;  or,  if  one  gave  to  the  other,  the 
receiver  of  the  benefit  was  he  who  conferred  the 
greater  obligation  of  the  two.  This  passion,  so 
high  and  virile,  was  an  unique  experience  for  each 
friend,  standing  single  and  alone,  and  could  never 
be  repeated  in  the  life  of  the  survivor.  In  the  his- 
tory of  many  men  there  has  been  some  supreme 
event  which  seems  to  interpret  the  secret  of  exist- 
ence, which  divides  the  cloud  of  custom,  and  gives 

*  Essays,  II,  17. 
95 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

a  higher  meaning  to  the  whole  of  hfe.  With  one 
man  it  is  religious  conversion;  with  another  it  is 
some  heroic  act  of  obedience  to  duty  or  of  self- 
surrender  ;  with  another  it  is  the  love  of  a  woman. 
With  Montaigne  it  was  his  friendship  with 
fitienne  de  La  Boetie. 

The  last  act  of  La  Boetie's  public  life,  of  which 
we  are  aware,  was  that  of  a  guardian  of  public 
order.  The  Huguenots  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Bordeaux,  undeluded  by  the  specious  calm  which 
followed  the  edict  of  January,  1562,  had  seized 
upon  Bergerac,  and  it  was  feared  that  they  might 
attempt  to  surprise  Bordeaux  itself.  In  Decem- 
ber of  that  year  twelve  hundred  men  of  the  city 
were  enrolled  to  secure  its  safety  and  quiet. 
Twelve  councillors  of  the  Parliament  were  placed 
in  command  of  these  centuries  of  citizen  soldiers. 
Among  the  officers  of  this  hastily  organized  body 
of  guards  La  Boetie  was  one. 

The  end  came  unexpectedly.  The  record  of  La 
Boetie's  last  illness  and  dying  hours  is  given  in 
the  extract  from  a  letter  of  Montaigne  to  his 
father,  written  probably  soon  after  the  first  days 
of  sorrow,  but  not  printed  until  certain  of  the 
writings  of  Montaigne's  dead  friend  were  issued 
in  1 571  under  his  own  superintendence.  The  in- 
cidents are  told  from  day  to  day,  almost  from 
hour  to  hour,  with  a  sense  of  deep  responsibility 
for  accuracy  of  statement.    The  writer  would  not 

96 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

willingly  alter  or  lose  anything  of  what  was  all  so 
rare  and  precious;  he  would  make  the  reader  as 
far  as  possible  a  witness  of  the  event;  he  writes 
with  restrained  tenderness,  yielding  to  no  extrav- 
agant outbreaks  of  feeling,  which  would  only  ob- 
scure the  central  figure  of  the  narrative,  and 
would  be  out  of  harmony  with  his  friend's  grave 
temperance  and  self-possession.  Montaigne  has 
never  elsewhere  written  with  such  a  dignified  sim- 
plicity. 

The  death-bed,  which  he  stood  by  day  after 
day,  was  that  of  a  sage  who  was  also  a  Christian. 
Never  was  the  process  of  dying  more  free  from 
unreality,  more  full  of  genuine  dignity: 

"  No   weakness,   no  contempt, 
Dispraise  or  blame ;    nothing  but  well  and  fair, 
And  what  may  quiet  us  in  a  death  so  noble." 

During  all  his  years  La  Boetie  had  enjoyed  vig- 
orous and  uninterrupted  health.  On  August  9, 
1563,  when  returning  from  the  courts  of  law, 
Montaigne  sent  to  his  friend,  inviting  him  to  din- 
ner. The  answer  was  that  La  Boetie  was  not 
quite  well,  and  would  be  pleased  if  Montaigne 
would  come  and  spend  an  hour  with  him  before 
he  started  for  "  Medor"  (  PMedoc).  When  Mon- 
taigne called,  he  found  La  Boetie  lying  down  but 
not  undressed,  and  looking  much  altered  in  ap- 
pearance; he  stated  that  he  had  caught  a  chill,  as 
7  97 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

he  supposed,  while  at  play  with  M.  d'Escars.  The 
plague  was  in  Bordeaux,  and  Montaigne  urged 
upon  his  friend  that  he  should  avoid  the  infected 
air  by  quitting  the  city,  but  not  venture  farther 
than  the  village  of  Germignan,  two  leagues  to  the 
northeast.  The  advice  was  followed,  and  La 
Boetie  was  accompanied  by  his  wife  and  his  good 
uncle  and  namesake,  the  cure  of  Bouillonnas. 

Early  next  morning  Montaigne  heard  from 
Mme.  de  La  Boetie  *  that  her  husband  was  suf- 
fering from  a  violent  attack  of  dysentery.  A  phy- 
sician had  been  called  in.  Montaigne  hastened  to 
his  friend,  who  was  delighted  to  see  him,  and 
begged  him  to  sacrifice  in  such  attendance  as  much 
time  as  might  be  possible.  The  anxious  wife  with 
tears  entreated  Montaigne  to  stay  for  the  night. 
On  Saturday,  La  Boetie,  supposing  that  his  mal- 
ady might  be  in  some  slight  degree  contagious, 
and  perceiving  a  depression  which  Montaigne 
could  not  conceal,  begged  him  not  to  remain  con- 
stantly with  him,  but  to  come  now  and  again,  and, 
indeed,  as  often  as  circumstances  would  permit. 
"  From  that  time  forward,"  Montaigne  writes,  "  I 
never  left  him." 

*  She  is  styled  Mademoiselle,  as  was  also  Montaigne's 
wife.  The  wives  of  persons  of  high  rank  and  also  of  a 
humble  position  were  called  Madame.  In  an  intermediate 
social  position  Mademoiselle  was  customary  with  married 
women. 

98 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

The  stages  of  increasing  weakness,  the  testa- 
mentary arrangements,  the  words  of  affection,  of 
resignation,  of  unalterable  equanimity  are  all  duly 
placed  on  record  by  Montaigne.  For  the  sake  of 
his  wife  and  uncle,  La  Boetie  at  first  concealed 
the  assurance  he  had  that  recovery  was  hardly  to 
be  expected.  In  their  presence  he  seemed  even 
gay.  He  grieved  on  his  wife's  account  and  his 
friend's  that  he  must  depart;  as  for  himself,  his 
chief  regret  was  that  the  opportunity  he  had  an- 
ticipated of  doing  some  good  work  for  his  fellows 
and  for  his  country  was  not  to  be  granted  him : 
"  Possibly,  my  brother,  I  was  not  born  so  useless 
but  that  I  might  have  found  means  of  rendering 
some  service  in  public  affairs."  Having  explained 
the  arrangements  which  he  proposed  to  make  with 
respect  to  his  worldly  goods,  he  went  on  to  ex- 
press his  deep  gratitude  to  the  uncle  who  had 
been  as  a  father  to  him,  and  his  entire  joy  in  the 
wife  whom  he  addressed  by  that  favorite  name  he 
had  chosen  for  her,  "Ma  semblance" — "my  like- 
ness," "  my  image."  Then,  turning  to  Montaigne, 
he  spoke :  "  My  brother,  whom  I  love  so  dearly, 
and  whom  I  have  chosen  from  among  so  many 
men  with  you  to  revive  that  virtuous  and  sincere 
friendship,  the  habit  of  which  has  through  men's 
vices  been  so  long  estranged  from  among  us  that 
only  some  old  traces  of  it  remain  in  the  memor- 
ials of  antiquity,  I  beg  of  you  as  a  token  of  my 
99 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

affection  for  you  to  consent  to  be  the  inheritor  of 
my  hbrary  and  my  books,  which  I  give  you,  a  very 
Httle  gift,  but  one  of  great  good-will,  and  which  is 
appropriate  on  account  of  the  regard  you  bear  to- 
wards letters.  It  will  be  to  you  '■ir^fiiJ.'xjwMiv  tui 
sodalis' — '  a  memorial  of  your  old  companion." 
Whereupon  he  thanked  God  that  he  was  accom- 
panied to  the  end  by  those  who  were  dearest  to 
him  in  the  world.  "  It  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "  a 
very  comely  thing  to  see  a  group  of  four  persons 
so  harmonious  in  feeling,  so  united  in  friendship. 
...  I  am  a  Christian ;  I  am  a  Catholic ;  as  such 
I  have  lived,  as  such  I  am  resolved  to  close  my 
life.  Let  a  priest  be  summoned,  for  I  would  not 
fail  in  this  last  duty  of  a  Christian." 

All  this  was  spoken  with  a  quiet  firmness.  Some 
hours  later  the  notary  was  by  the  bedside,  and  La 
Boetie  dictated  swiftly  and  precisely  the  terms  of 
his  will.  Then  with  wise  words  of  counsel  he 
took  farewell  of  his  niece  and  of  his  stepdaugh- 
ter. The  chamber  was  full  of  weeping;  he 
begged  all  to  withdraw  except  his  "  garrison,"  as 
he  named  the  maids  who  waited  on  him.  Yet  for 
a  little  he  retained  one  of  the  sorrowing  group — 
a  younger  brother  of  Montaigne,  M.  de  Beaure- 
gard, vi'ho  was  a  zealous  adherent  of  the  Re- 
formed Faith,  at  a  later  time  to  become  the  hus- 
band of  La  Boetie's  stepdaughter.  The  dying 
man  commended  him  for  his  earnestness,  his  sin- 

100 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

cere  and  simple  affection  for  what  he  beheved  to 
be  the  truth.  It  was  easy  to  understand  how  one 
should  think  as  he  did,  seeing  the  disorder  that 
had  crept  into  the  Church,  and  the  vicious  lives  of 
prelates.  La  Boetie  would  not  discourage  him 
from  following  the  dictates  of  his  conscience.  All 
he  begged  was  that  M.  de  Beauregard  should  tem- 
per his  zeal  with  discretion,  and  that,  as  far  as 
was  possible,  he  should  not  permit  differences  with 
respect  to  religion  to  disturb  the  unity  of  his 
father's  household.  Montaigne's  brother  thanked 
his  kind  monitor  heartily  and  withdrew. 

Why  trace  farther  the  progress  of  La  Boetie's 
decline?  Having  confessed,  and  received  the  sac- 
rament, and  again  made  profession  of  his  faith, 
he  lay  in  great  w^eakness,  no  longer,  as  he  said,  a 
man,  but  the  similitude  of  a  man — non  homo  sed 
species  Jwmiuis — suffering  much,  yet  possessed 
with  anticipations  "  wonderful,  infinite,  and  in- 
effable". When  he  bade  his  wife  a  last  farewell, 
repeating  the  name  of  old  affection,  "  Ma  sein- 
blance,"  he  tried  to  retract  his  word  "  I  am  going 
away",  which  alarmed  her,  by  turning  it  into  a 
simple  good-night :  "  Good-night,  my  w^ife ;  go 
thy  way."  He  begged  his  friend  to  keep  close  to 
him.  For  a  while  his  mind  seemed  to  hover  be- 
tween dreams  and  realities ;  then  came  a  deceptive 
lightening  before  death.  He  appeared  to  rest,  and 
]\Iontaigne    left    the    chamber    to    rejoice    with 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Madame  de  La  Boetie,  "  About  an  hour  after- 
wards," continues  the  narrator,  "  naming  me  once 
or  twice,  and  heaving  a  long  sigh,  he  gave  up  the 
ghost,  towards  three  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morn- 
ing, the  eighteenth  of  August,  fifteen  hundred  and 
sixty-three,  having  lived  thirty-two  years,  nine 
months,  and  seventeen  days." 

There  have  been  deaths  more  rapturous  than 
La  Boetie's,  deaths  in  which  dying  seems  but  the 
incident  of  a  moment  in  some  advance  upon  a 
great  end.  There  has  been  no  death  of  more  calm 
deliberation,  more  dignified  tenderness.  It  was, 
indeed,  touched  with  the  light  of  Christian  hope. 
But  as  a  grave  withdrawal  and  leave-taking  it 
resembled  those  beautiful  classic  reliefs  in  which 
a  tranquil,  pathetic,  and,  in  the  old  sense  of  the 
word,  decent  farewell  is  represented — the  son 
taking  the  parent's  hand  for  the  last  time,  the  hus- 
band withdrawing  from  the  wife, or  friend  parting 
from  friend.  The  gift  to  Montaigne  of  the  books 
which  La  Boetie  cherished  was  much,  but  the 
most  precious  bequest  was  the  memory  of  such  a 
life  and  of  such  a  death.  The  thought  of  death 
had  haunted  Montaigne  even  in  the  midst  of  his 
mundane  pleasures.  Now  he  had  seen  what  it  is 
for  a  gentleman,  a  scholar,  a  philosopher,  and  a 
Christian  to  die.  It  made  life  more  intelligible. 
Perplexed  enough  it  still  might  be;  but  here  was 
something    steadfast,     something    really    ascer- 


FRIENDSHIP:     LA    BOETIE 

tained,  on  which  he  could  lean,  and  by  which  he 
could  support  himself. 

Writing  many  years  after  his  loss,  Montaigne 
declared  that,  though  he  had  passed  his  time  not 
without  enjoyment,  and  with  no  great  affliction 
except  this  one,  all  the  rest  of  his  life,  compared 
with  those  few  years  during  which  he  had  the 
happiness  of  companionship  with  La  Boetie, 
seemed  nothing  but  a  smoke  or  an  obscure  and 
tedious  night :  "  From  the  day  that  I  lost  him  I 
have  only  dragged  on  in  a  languishing  way,  and 
the  very  pleasures  that  offer  themselves  to  me,  in- 
stead of  consoling  me,  redouble  my  grief  for  his 
loss ;  w^e  were  halves  throughout ;  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  defraud  him  of  his  part."  In  1581,  nearly 
a  score  of  years  after  his  friend's  death,  Mon- 
taigne was  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca;  and  ailing 
somewhat,  yet  full  of  the  spirit  of  untiring  curi- 
osity, which  made  every  place  interesting.  Sud- 
denly the  cloud  of  his  early  loss  overshadowed 
him,  and  all  the  sunlight  was  blotted  from  the 
day :  "  While  I  was  writing  that  same  morning 
to  M.  Ossat,"  he  enters  in  his  journal,  "  I  fell 
thinking  of  M.  de  La  Boetie,  and  I  remained  in 
this  mood  so  long  that  I  sank  into  the  saddest  hu- 
mour." So  shaken  was  Montaigne  by  the  long 
reverberations  of  his  sorrow. 


103 


CHAPTER  IV 

FROM  LA  BOETIE's  DEATH  TO  1 5/0 

Montaigne's  first  duty,  after  the  death  of  his 
friend,  was  to  offer  such  consolation  as  he  could, 
in  accordance  with  the  dying  injunction  of  La 
Boetie,  to  the  afflicted  widow.  He  did  not  oppose 
the  outflow  of  her  grief;  he  rather  let  it  have  its 
course  at  first.  He  did  not  quote  Cleanthes  or 
Chrysippus,  but  let  her  weep  without  the  poor 
styptic  of  philosophical  phrases.  Taking  part 
with  her  in  her  sorrow,  he  endeavoured  by  soft 
degrees  to  lead  the  conversation  away  from  the 
central  theme,  and  to  interest  her  in  returning  to 
life.  He  had  hopes  that  his  efforts  were  not 
wholly  useless,  but  those  who  were  afterwards  her 
most  intimate  companions  assured  him  that  he 
had  effected  nothing.  "  I  had  not,"  he  says,  "  laid 
my  axe  to  the  root  of  the  tree."  Marguerite  de 
Carle  lived  on  in  sorrow,  surviving  her  husband 
some  eighteen  years.* 

It  is  in  the  essay  on  Diversion  that  Montaigne 
speaks  of  his  ineffectual  efforts  to  turn  to  side 
issues  a  portion  of  the  energy  of  Madame  de  La 

*  I  think  it  hardly  doubtful  that  the  opening  passage  of 
Essays,  III,  4,  refers  to  Madame  de  La  Boetie. 
104 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

Boetie's  passion.  He  held  that  real  grief  remains 
at  its  rigid  centre  always  what  it  was  at  first :  "  A 
wise  man  sees  his  friend  dying  almost  as  vividly 
at  the  end  of  five-and-twenty  years  as  in  the  first 
year" — words  which,  it  may  be  noted,  appeared  in 
the  edition  of  the  Essays  published  exactly  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  after  La  Boetie's  death.  But 
other  things  happily  intervene  and  distract  us 
from  the  sorrow  which  for  a  time  had  wholly  pos- 
sessed our  thoughts.  We  are  often  strong  to  bear 
the  knowledge  of  a  great  loss ;  we  have  to  bear  it 
all  our  life  and  we  stiffen  our  back  to  the  burden. 
It  is  some  trivial  incident,  a  phrase,  a  perfume,  a 
bar  of  music,  the  remembrance  of  a  farewell  or  of 
some  gesture  of  peculiar  grace,  that  unmans  us. 
And  regarding  man  as  indeed  he  is,  what  an  in- 
firm and  variable  creature  he  shows  himself  to 
be !  Is  it  not  the  part  of  prudence  to  turn  our 
own  infirmity  to  good  account?  If  our  passion  is 
running  at  headlong  speed,  shall  we  not  fling  an 
Atalanta's  apple  to  it,  and  so  divert  it  from  the 
course?  It  is  so  characteristic  of  Montaigne, 
whether  we  like  him  the  worse  for  what  he  con- 
fesses or  not,  that  something  would  be  lost  by 
omitting  to  tell  that,  in  his  real  and  deep  distress 
for  the  death  of  his  friend,  he  dealt  with  himself 
as  an  exemplar  of  that  infirm  and  variable  crea- 
ture, man,  and  endeavoured  to  distract  his  mind 
with  a  transitory  passion  of  love.  His  dead  friend 
105 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

would  have  counselled  him  to  seek  for  strength  in 
duty.  Precisely  what  La  Boetie  had  warned  him 
against  he  deliberately  sought.  "  In  former 
days,"  he  wrote  in  1588,  "I  was  wounded  by  a 
grievous  displeasure,  according  to  my  complex- 
ion, and  withal  more  just  than  grievous;  I  had 
peradventure  lost  myself  in  it,  had  I  relied  only  on 
strength  of  my  own.  Needing  a  vehement  diver- 
sion to  distract  me  from  it,  I  made  myself  by  art 
and  study  a  lover,  wherein  my  age  helped  me; 
love  solaced  me,  and  withdrew  me  from  the  evil 
which  friendship  had  caused  in  me.  'Tis  in  every- 
thing else  the  same;  a  violent  imagination  has 
seized  me;  I  find  it  a  readier  way  to  change  it 
than  subdue  it;  I  substitute  for  it,  if  not  one  con- 
trary, at  least  one  that  is  different ;  variation  ever 
solaces, dissolves, and  dissipates,"*  If  once  wholly 
conquered  and  beaten  down  by  any  passion,  Mon- 
taigne believed  that  he  could  never,  as  we  say,  be 
his  own  man  again.  His  marriage  followed  La 
Boetie's  death  after  an  interval  of  two  years.  If 
any  reader  is  so  charitable,  he  may  hold  that  these 
words  of  Montaigne  refer  to  the  period  of  his 
courtship.  But  Montaigne's  courtship  of  Fran- 
goise  de  La  Chassaigne  was  perhaps  conducted 
in  the  spirit  of  philosophical  resignation  rather 
than  as  a  lover.    We  cannot  tell ;   and  it  may  not 

*  Essays,  III,  4. 
106 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

be   unreasonable   to   give   him   the   benefit   of   a 
doubt. 

There  can,  however,  be  no  question  as  to  the 
fact  that  his  early  manhood  was  not  like  that  of 
his  father,  who  had 

"  pass'd  by  the  ambush  of  young  days, 
Either  not  assail'd,  or  victor  being  charged." 

The  age  was  one  in  which,  as  Montaigne  him- 
self says,  virtue  was  hardly  a  thing  that  could  be 
conceived ;  the  word  sounded  like  a  term  of  some 
old  scholastic  jargon :  "  It  is  a  trinket  to  hang  in 
a  cabinet,  or  at  the  tip  of  the  tongue,  as  a  jewel 
is  worn  at  the  tip  of  the  ear,  for  an  ornament." 
His  license  of  manners  and  morals  was  never  ex- 
travagant ;  it  was  less  coarse  than  that  of  many  of 
his  contemporaries;  and  his  judgment  remained 
superior  to  his  conduct.  He  could  honour  a  purity 
of  life  which  he  himself  made  no  serious  efifort 
to  attain.  He  claims  for  himself,  and  doubtless 
with  justice,  that  he  never  deceived,  never  made  a 
false  promise,  and  that,  though  occasionally  his 
hasty  temper  might  show  itself,  never  was  he 
treacherous,  malicious,  or  cruel.  Beauty  and  wit 
had  a  charm  for  him,  and  beauty  in  women  even 
more  than  wit;  yet  sometimes  out  of  regard  for 
the  honour  of  another,  he  took  sides,  as  he  de- 
clares, against  himself. 

In  not  a  few  places  Montaigne  has  written 
without  modesty  or  reserve;  yet  we  can  believe 
107 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

him  when  he  tells  us  that  by  his  natural  instinct 
he  was  fastidiously  decorous.  The  license  of  his 
pen  was  in  part  the  result  of  his  resolve  that  in 
the  Essays  he  would  present  himself  at  full  length 
as  a  study  towards  the  natural  history  of  the 
genus  homo;  in  part  the  result  of  a  contemptu- 
ous feeling  towards  conventional  proprieties  as- 
sumed by  others  as  the  disguise  of  a  concealed 
grossness  of  living.  He  at  least  would  be  no  pre- 
tender. He  could  reflect  that  his  conduct  was 
more  orderly  than  his  speech.  And  yet  he  is 
aware  that  speech  itself  is  an  important  part  of 
conduct.  He  does  not  excuse  his  license  of  utter- 
ance ;  any  excuse,  he  says,  w'ould  itself  have  to  be 
excused.  He  asserts  that  the  design  of  his  wdiole 
book  is  legitimate,  and  that  this  design  requires 
such  unabashed  discourse;  and,  in  fine,  that  he 
must  give  his  lesson  in  natural  history  in  his  own 
way,  not  morosely  but  cheerfully.  Nature,  the 
wanton  Pan,  is  to  blame,  not  he.  But,  in  truth, 
the  defence  is  inadequate.  Montaigne  has  neither 
the  purity  of  science,  to  which  all  things  are  pure, 
nor  that  of  art,  which  uplifts  the  humbler  facts  of 
life  through  a  sense  of  their  relation  to  higher 
facts.  Nature,  which  he  professes  to  follow,  in- 
cludes, if  understood  aright,  all  wholesome  re- 
straints. "  The  offence,"  said  Emerson,  in  his 
lecture  on  Montaigne,  "  is  superficial".  That  is 
far  from  being  the  case ;  superficial  it  is  not ;  but 
io8 


LA   BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

it  is  the  offence  of  a  large  and  a  complex  per- 
sonality, to  reject  whom  for  a  fault  would  be  to 
commit  a  wrong  against  ourselves. 

Montaigne  had  lost  his  dearest  friend.  He  was 
thirty-three  years  of  age.  His  father  was  old,  and 
desired  to  found  a  family  which  should  possess 
his  estate,  and  enjoy  the  chateau  which  he  had 
been  at  the  pains  to  rebuild.  It  w^as  time  that  his 
eldest  son  should  take  to  himself  a  wife.  A  man 
— Montaigne  considered — must  fulfil  the  condi- 
tions imposed  by  humanity ;  and  marriage,  after 
all,  is  in  the  bond.  It  involves,  no  doubt,  a  cer- 
tain loss  of  the  independence  a  man  should  cher- 
ish above  everything,  but  perhaps  it  is  possible  to 
contrive  an  independence  within  the  constraint  of 
marriage.  Somehow  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
life  this  matrimonial  relation  has  to  be  accepted. 
Nothing  is  more  useful,  nothing  more  necessary, 
for  human  society.  We  must  fall  in  with  a  ven- 
erable and  excellent  custom ;  we  must  incorporate 
ourselves  w-ith  the  race.  The  point  of  chief  con- 
cern is  that  a  marriage  in  its  kind  should  be  good. 
The  path  of  wedded  life  is,  no  doubt,  "  full  of 
thorny  circumstances",  but  at  its  best  it  may  be  "  a 
sweet  society  of  life",  rich  in  constancy,  in  mutual 
trust,  in  an  infinite  number  of  useful  and  substan- 
tial services  and  obligations.  From  the  outset  let 
it  be  clearly  understood  that,  w^hile  marriage  is  not 
dissociated  from  a  reasonable  love,  love,  at  least  in 
109 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

the  sense  of  passion,  is  not  the  foundation  on 
which  it  rests.  We  should  not  confuse  and  con- 
found things  that  are  different;  to  do  so  is  a 
wrong  ahke  to  marriage  and  to  love.  Let  us 
think  of  it  rather  as  a  form,  not  the  highest,  but  in 
its  own  way  excellent,  of  friendship.  Thus  alone 
can  a  wife  receive  her  due  honour,  that  of  a  help- 
mate, not  a  mistress.  Thirty-three  years  old — it 
is  not  quite  so  satisfactory  an  age  as  that  approved 
by  Aristotle,  thirty-five.  Plato  would  have  no 
man  marry  before  thirty.  Thirty-three,  lying  be- 
tween the  two,  cannot  be  very  far  astray;  and 
there  are  a  kind  expectant  father  and  mother,  and 
a  house  and  worldly  gear,  which  by  and  by  cannot 
but  require  a  domestic  supervisor. 

Such,  if  the  Essays  do  not  misrepresent  his  ear- 
lier self,  were  the  reflections  of  Montaigne  in  his 
character  of  a  wooer. 

"  Of  my  own  disposition  I  would  not  have  married 
Wisdom  herself,  if  she  would  have  had  me ;  but,  say 
what  we  may,  the  custom  and  usage  of  common  life  get 
the  better  of  us.  Most  of  my  actions  are  guided  by 
example,  not  by  choice ;  and  yet  I  did  not  properly  invite 
myself  to  it;  I  was  led  and  brought  to  it  by  extrinsic 
occasions,  for  not  only  things  incommodious  but  even 
things  foul,  vicious,  and  to  be  avoided,  may  be  rendered 
acceptable  to  us  by  some  condition  or  accident.  So  vain 
is  man's  attitude  towards  things !  And  truly  I  was  then 
drawn  unto  it  more  ill-prepared  and  less  tractable  than 
I  am  at  present,  after  having  made  trial  of  it ;  and  as 
libertine  as  I  am  taken  to  be,  I  have  in  truth  more  strictly 
no 


LA   BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

observed  the  laws  of  wedlock  than  I  cither  promised  or 
hoped.  'Tis  too  late  to  kick  when  a  man  has  let  himself 
be  shackled ;    he  must  prudently  economise  his  freedom."  * 

Mademoiselle  de  Montaigne  may  have  read 
these  words  of  her  husband,  printed  more  than  a 
score  of  years  after  her  marriage,  and  may  have 
smiled  at  them,  knowing  how  fortunate  the  event 
was  for  her  philosopher;  or  he  might  have  read 
them  aloud  for  her,  and  if  she  had  good  sense,  as 
seems  to  have  been  the  case,  and  a  grain  of 
humour,  they  may  have  smiled  together. 

The  marriage-contract  is  dated  September  22, 
1 565 ;  the  ceremony  was  celebrated  on  the 
twenty-third.  The  bride,  Frangoise  de  La  Chas- 
saigne,  eleven  years  younger  than  her  husband, 
was  the  daughter  of  Joseph  de  La  Chassaigne,  a 
councillor  of  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux.  Her 
mother's  maiden  name  was  Marguerite  Douhet. 
Montaigne's  wife  came  of  an  old  family,  distin- 
guished in  the  magistracy;  a  family  not  lacking 
worldly  means,  for  the  marriage  portion,  part  paid 
down,  part  to  be  paid  within  four  years,  amounted 
to  seven  thousand  "  livres  tonrnois",  equivalent 
to  some  thirty  thousand  francs,  which  we  must 
multiply  by  ten,  if  M.  Bonnefon's  estimate  be  cor- 
rect, to  find  its  present  value.  The  advocate  An- 
toine    de    Louppes,    a   kinsman    of    Montaigne's 

*  Essays,  III,  5. 
Ill 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

mother,  assisted  in  the  legal  arrangements,  which 
involved  the  cancelling  of  a  first  marriage  settle- 
ment, and  the  substitution  for  it  of  a  second,  with 
some  slight  alteration  in  its  terms. 

There  are  good  grounds  for  believing  that  the 
marriage,  judged  according  to  the  ideal  of  wed- 
ded happiness  which  Montaigne  sets  forth  in  the 
Essays,  was  a  happy  one.  The  "  new  shoe",  to 
which  he  alludes  in  the  essay  on  Vanity,  did 
not  pinch  his  foot  as  much  as  he  may  have  antici- 
pated. When  the  chateau  became  his  own,  and 
the  books  were  ranged  in  his  library,  there  was 
always  a  place  of  retreat  from  any  excess  of 
threatening  domesticities ;  for  conjugal  as  well  as 
other  society  was  interdicted  in  the  tower.  Sen- 
eca and  Plutarch  served  as  giant  warders  of  the 
philosopher's  freedom  and  equanimity.  But  Mon- 
taigne knew,  and  it  was  much  to  him  to  know, 
that  household  affairs  were  conducted  with  discre- 
tion while  he  turned  the  page,  or  meditated,  with 
heels  higher  than  his  head,  and  that  a  temperate 
sunshine  of  happiness  made  bright  the  chateau. 
He  was  himself  unskilled  in  household  economy. 
He  had  acres  to  be  tilled  or  planted,  but  he  could 
hardly  tell  whether  the  green  thing  in  his  kitchen 
garden  was  a  lettuce  or  a  cabbage.  He  could  not 
keep  accounts;  he  scarcely  knew  one  coin  from 
another;  legal  papers,  title-deeds  and  the  like,  he 
chose  to  lay  aside  unread  and  unopened.     Where 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

he  was  deficient,  Madame  de  Montaigne  was  in 
her  element.  "  The  most  useful  and  honourable 
knowledge  and  occupation  for  the  mother  of  a 
family,"  he  writes,  ''are  those  of  household  econ- 
omy. I  see  some  that  are  pinching ;  of  good  man- 
agers but  very  few.  It  is  the  supreme  excellence 
of  a  woman  which  should  be  sought  before  all  oth- 
ers, as  the  sole  dowry  which  serves  to  save  or  ruin 
our  houses.  Let  them  say  what  they  will,  I  re- 
quire, as  experience  has  taught  it  me,  above  every 
other  virtue  in  a  married  woman  the  economic 
virtue.  I  give  her  the  opportunity  of  practicing  it, 
leaving  her  by  my  absence  the  whole  government 
of  my  affairs."  * 

It  is  true  that  Montaigne's  wife  plays  hardly  a 
more  important  part  in  the  Essays  than  Mon- 
taigne's cat ;  but  she  seems  to  have  been  as  harm- 
less and  more  necessary.  Is  her  husband's  silence 
due  to  the  reserve  of  tenderness  and  respect?  Is 
it  due  to  indifference?  M.  Paul  Stapfer  f  justly 
calls  attention  to  a  passage  in  the  essay  on  E.i'~ 
ercitation  in  which  ]\Iontaigne  tells  of  a  serious 
misadventure  which  befell  him  during  one  of  the 
periods  of  civil  war — the  precise  date  he  could  not 
remember.  He  had  gone  to  take  the  air  on  horse- 
back, attended  by  his  servants.    The  massive  Ger- 

*  Essays,  III,  9. 

t  La   Famillc   et   les   Amis   de   Montaigne,   p.    65. 

8  113 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

man  horse  ridden  by  one  of  these,  a  tall,  burly  fel- 
low, became  unmanageable,  and  the  rider  came 
thundering  down,  like  a  Colossus,  upon  his  mas- 
ter, "  the  little  man  on  the  little  horse".  Mon- 
taigne was  dashed  violently  to  the  ground,  was 
badly  hurt,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
swooned.  As  he  floated  up  to  consciousness  he 
observed,  with  such  accuracy  as  was  possible,  his 
sensations,  and  the  thoughts  and  feelings  that  in- 
voluntarily arose  within  him.  "As  I  drew  near 
my  house,  where  the  alarm  of  my  fall  had  already 
arrived,  and  certain  of  my  family  ran  to  meet  me, 
with  the  outcries  customary  on  such  occasions, 
not  only  did  I  utter  some  word  in  reply  to  what 
they  asked  me,  but  I  am  told  I  had  sense  enough 
to  bid  them  give  my  wife  a  horse,  for  I  saw  her 
labouring  and  incommoded  on  the  road,  which  is 
hilly  and  rugged."  The  instinct  of  help  on  behalf 
of  his  wife,  struggling  through  his  own  pain  and 
weakness,  speaks  much  for  Montaigne;  it  was 
prompt,  almost  as  inevitable  as  a  reflex  action, 
and  as  quickly  forgotten  as  it  was  brought  into 
existence. 

True  it  is  that  Fran(;oise  did  not  create  for  her 
husband's  imagination  an  atmosphere  through 
which  he  saw  all  of  womanhood  idealised  or  enno- 
bled. In  his  pages  the  ever-renewed  civil  war  be- 
tween the  sexes  breaks  forth  again  and  again.  He 
flings  his  gibes  at  women,  like  sputtering  gren- 
114 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

ades,  sometimes  with  a  clumsy,  sometimes  with  a 
dexterous  hand.  They  do  not  all  mean  serious 
mischief.  Montaigne  had  the  tradition  of  the 
mediaeval  mockery  of  women  behind  him.  Some 
women,  he  gladly  admits,  have  given  admirable 
examples  of  courage,  of  virtue,  of  self-oblivious 
love;  but  these  are  Plutarch's  women,  a  species 
even  rarer  than  Plutarch's  men  in  these  our  mod- 
ern days.  The  chapter  on  Three  Good  Women 
opens  with  the  words :  '*  They  are  not  to  be  had 
by  dozens,  as  every  one  knows,  and  especially  in 
the  duties  of  the  married  state."  The  Essayist 
proceeds  to  reproduce  the  well-worn  sarcasm : 
"  In  our  age  they  commonly  reserve  the  demon- 
stration of  their  good  offices  and  vehement  affec- 
tion for  the  husbands  whom  they  have  lost."  If 
they  would  only  give  us  smiles  while  we  are  alive, 
they  might  laugh  as  much  as  they  please  when  we 
are  dead.  Yonder  afflicted  widow  has  cheeks 
plump  enough,  would  she  but  lift  the  veil,  and 
such  cheeks  at  least  speak  plain  French.  That  man 
knew  something  of  the  business  who  said  that  a 
happy  marriage  is  one  where  the  wife  is  blind  and 
the  husband  deaf.  The  passions  of  women  are 
not  less  ardent  than  those  of  men ;  their  virtue  is 
not  to  be  estimated  by  their  coyness;  vigorous 
limbs  are  more  to  their  taste  than  agile  brains ;  a 
brawny  muleteer  runs  as  good  a  chance  of  pleas- 
ing them  as  a  gallant  gentleman;  they  are  in- 
115 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

finitely  fickle;  their  favours  are  sometimes  trea- 
sons; they  are  greedy  for  authority;  furious  in 
jealousy;  fond  of  crossing  their  husbands  in 
everything;  they  would  rather  chew  red-hot  iron 
than  loosen  their  teeth  from  an  opinion  taken  up 
in  anger;  their  very  being  is  made  up  of  sus- 
picion, vanity,  and  curiosity.  So  runs  on  the  in- 
dictment. Worst  oflE'ence  of  all — they  often  treat 
the  volumes  of  Montaigne's  Essays  as  a  piece  of 
decorative  furniture  or  as  a  trivial  bibelot :  "  It 
vexeth  me,"  thus  Florio's  translation  has  it,  "  that 
my  Essays  serve  ladies  in  lieu  of  common  ware 
and  stuff  for  their  hall."  Was  Francis,  Duke  of 
Brittany,  far  wrong  when,  on  being  told  that  Isa- 
bella of  Scotland  was  without  learning,  he  de- 
clared that  a  woman  is  learned  enough  if  she 
knows  the  difference  between  her  husband's  shirt 
and  his  doublet? 

Montaigne  has  better  words  than  these  to  say 
of  women ;  and  in  saying  these,  he  does  not  look 
morose ;  he  smiles  partly  at  his  victims  but  a  little 
also  at  himself.  He  smiles  at  the  professions  of 
women  that  their  love  is  wholly  spiritual  or  intel- 
lectual. Why  then  do  they  always  give  the  pref- 
erence to  young  men  tall  and  proper  over  a  very 
Solomon  if  he  be  but  touched  with  years?  Yet 
why  should  it  not  be  so?  There  is  in  us  nothing 
that  is  purely  corporeal  or  purely  spiritual ;  soul 
and  body  should  act  and  enjoy  in  one.  At  the 
ii6 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

close  of  his  long  discourse  upon  Some  Verses  of 
Virgil,  Montaigne  confesses  that  men  are  almost 
as  unjust  judges  of  the  proceedings  of  women  as 
are  women  of  the  doings  of  men.  Yet  both  are 
cast  in  almost  the  same  mould — "  apart  from  edu- 
cation and  custom  the  difference  is  not  grea:t.  It 
is  much  more  easy  to  accuse  one  sex  than  to  ex- 
cuse the  other;  it  is,  as  they  say,  the  pot  calling 
the  kettle  black." 

Let  us  set  over  against  the  indictment  of 
women,  gathered  from  the  Essays,  those  words 
in  which  Montaigne  de4icates  to  his  wife,  after 
several  years  of  wedded  union,  his  dead  friend  La 
Boetie's  translation  of  Plutarch's  Letter  of  Con- 
solation. His  marriage  for  five  years  had  been 
childless ;  then  a  girl  was  born ;  and  the  infant 
had  but  a  small  handbreadth  of  life.  The  Letter 
of  Consolation  was  an  appropriate  gift  to  offer  to 
the  sorrowing  mother,  who  would  hardly  have 
been  offered  such  a  gift  had  she  known  no  more 
than  how  to  distinguish  between  her  husband's 
doublet  and  shirt.  "  My  wife,"  so  begins  the  ded- 
ication, "you  are  well  aware  that  it  is  not  the  part 
of  a  gentleman,  according  to  the  rules  of  our  day, 
to  court  and  caress  you  still,  for  they  say  that  an 
accomplished  man  may  indeed  take  to  himself  a 
wife,  but  to  espouse  her  is  the  act  of  a  fool.  Let 
them  talk ;  I,  for  my  part,  hold  to  the  simple  fash- 
ion of  the  olden  time ;  something  of  which  I  show 
117 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

in  my  hair.  And  in  truth  novelty,  even  to  the 
present  hour,  has  cost  this  poor  commonwealth  so 
dear,  and  I  know  not  whether  we  are  yet  at  the 
highest  bid,  that  in  everything  and  everywhere  I 
have  ceased  to  have  a  part  in  it.  Let  us,  my  wife, 
you  and  I,  live  in  the  old  French  way  [d  la 
vicUc  FrangoiscY' ■  The  dedicatory  letter  goes  on 
to  beg  his  wife  to  believe  in  Plutarch's  words  for 
the  love  she  bore  to  himself ;  and  ends  by  recom- 
mending the  writer  of  the  dedication  very  heart- 
ily to  her  good  graces,  and  praying  God  to  watch 
over  her.  These  are  not  the  words  of  a  misogy- 
nist, nor  of  a  husband  who,  being  shackled,  is 
stupid  enough  to  kick. 

Pierre  de  Montaigne  had  not  the  happiness  to 
hold  in  his  arms  his  son  Michel's  first  baby.  He 
died,  June  i8,  1566,  having  passed  by  a  few 
months  his  seventy-second  year.  His  old  age,  up 
to  sixty-seven,  when  he  began  to  be  seriously 
troubled  with  the  nephritic  malady  which  after- 
wards afflicted  his  son,  had  been  happy  and  vigor- 
ous. He  was  buried  at  Montaigne,  not  precisely 
as  the  Essayist,  with  a  touch  of  vanity,  expresses 
it,  in  "  the  tomb  of  his  ancestors",  but,  as  Pierre's 
will  has  it,  in  the  tomb  of  his  territorial  "  prede- 
cessors", who  were  not  of  his  own  family.  He 
left  eight  children,  five  sons  and  three  daughters, 
the  youngest  of  the  sons  being  only  about  eight 
years  old.     Michel,  the  eldest  of  the  surviving 

118 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

children,  bore  the  title  of  Montaigne,  and  became, 
subject  to  certain  conditions,  the  "  universal  heir". 
To  Thomas,  the  second  son,  Michel  resigned  the 
noble  house,  with  the  title  of  Beauregard,  in  the 
parish  of  Merignac,  near  Bordeaux;  to  Pierre, 
the  property  and  title  of  La  Brousse ;  to  Arnaud, 
Captain  St.  Martin,  another  property,  with  a 
sum  of  money.  The  boy  Bertrand-Charles,  who 
afterwards  took  his  title  from*  the  noble  house  of 
Mattecoulon,  was  placed  in  the  wardship  of  his 
brother  Michel,  associated  with  other  relatives. 
Of  Montaigne's  sisters,  one  was  the  wife  of  Rich- 
ard de  Lestonnac,  a  councillor  of  the  Parliament 
of  Bordeaux ;  she  had  already  received  her  dowry. 
Leonor  and  Marie  were  given  at  later  dates  what 
was  due  to  them,  when  the  marriage  of  each  sister 
was  being  arranged.  Montaigne's  widowed 
mother  continued  to  live  in  the  chateau,  with  her 
own  attendants,  occupying  perhaps  the  so-called 
"  tour  de  Madame",  with  its  hall  on  the  ground- 
floor  and  its  bedroom  on  the  first  story.  She  may 
have  assisted  in  household  affairs,  but  possessed 
no  legal  authority  in  such  matters. 

Montaigne's  sorrow  for  a  father  whom  he 
greatly  loved  and  honoured  may  have  been  quali- 
fied a  little  by  the  sense  of  dignity  attaching  to  his 
position  as  the  head  of  his  house.  He  admits  that 
there  is  a  certain  pleasure  in  command — com- 
mand even  in  a  barn — command  even  of  ser- 
119 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

vants ;  but  few  persons  could  be  less  naturally  fit- 
ted to  enjoy  a  place  of  authority  than  was  he.  Lit- 
tle things  broke  in  upon  the  quietude  that  he  loved. 
The  thought  of  a  poor  tenant's  need,  the  report  of 
a  trespass  upon  his  land,  the  negligence  of  a  stew- 
ard, the  weather,  which  if  it  serves  the  vines  must 
spoil  the  meadows,  the  stupidity  of  a  servant,  the 
ill  grace  with  which  he  cheats  the  master — for  we 
may  tolerate  some  cheating,  if  only  it  be  agreeably 
conducted — the  fall  of  a  tile,  the  breach  of  per- 
sonal dignity  in  bustling  when  guests  arrive,  yet 
bustle  one  must  if  things  are  to  go  aright — each 
of  these  helped  to  mar  some  fragment  of  the  day. 
"  I  came  late,"  he  says,  "  to  the  management  of  a 
house ;  those  whom  nature  sent  before  me  into  the 
world  delivered  me  for  long  from  that  care;  so 
that  I  had  already  taken  another  ply  more  in  ac- 
cord with  my  complexion."  In  household  affairs 
there  is  always  something  that  goes  awry;  petty 
vexations  shatter  you  into  fragments ;  your  clear- 
sightedness is  itself  a  calamity;  you  try  to  avert 
your  eyes,  and  somehow  they  are  drawn  back. 
Vain  pricks,  as  of  a  needle;  vain  indeed,  yet 
pricking  still!  And  life  is  a  tender  thing,  easily 
distempered.  To  forsake  such  affairs  wholly  may 
not  be  difficult;  to  concern  one's  self  about  them 
in  any  degree  and  to  escape  perturbation,  is  most 
hard.  At  its  best  authority  is  a  kind  of  servitude. 
To  become  the  servant  of  one's  self,  to  shackle 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

one's  self  to  one's  own  concerns,  is  something  far 
removed  from  tliat  liberty  which  is  to  be  desired. 

With  one  who,  hke  Montaigne,  has  a  profound 
and  penetrating  sense  of  the  independent  individu- 
ahty  of  every  human  being,  the  art  of  command 
is  never  easy.  What  is  right  from  my  own  point 
of  view  is  right  only  in  a  relative  way.  My  wife, 
my  child,  my  servant,  is  a  separate  human  per- 
sonality. How  unreasonable  to  assert  that  my 
point  of  view  must  be  that  of  any  other  individ- 
ual on  the  face  of  the  earth !  How  barbarous  to 
impose  the  fiat  of  one  will  upon  another,  which 
possesses  the  inalienable  right  of  humanity — indi- 
vidual freedom.  To  obey  is  comparatively  easy 
for  a  philosopher;  he  can  adapt  himself  to  all 
the  necessities  of  life,  and  make  the  best  of  them. 
But  it  is  hard,  indeed,  to  widen  the  injustice  of 
the  world  by  giving  a  command. 

It  may  have  been  about  this  time  that  Mon- 
taigne for  the  first  time  troubled  himself  seriously 
about  ways  and  means.  Beggars  and  gangrel 
bodies  may  have  their  glorious  hour,  like  the  sing- 
ers by  the  fire  at  Poosie-Nansie's  of  Burns's  can- 
tata. They  at  least  are  free,  and  can  rejoice  in 
their  state  of  nature.  But  for  a  comfortable  pro- 
prietor to  fall  into  indigence  may  mean  not  free- 
dom but  painful  constraint.  It  is  not  want,  but 
rather  abundance,  Montaigne  says,  that  creates 
avarice.     Probablv  v^hen  he  first  felt  that  he  had 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

enough  and  to  spare  of  worldly  goods,  he  began 
to  vex  himself  with  the  alarms  of  possible  future 
poverty.  He  was  now  five-and-thirty,  an  age 
when  the  cares  of  life  begin  to  weigh  upon  one 
whose  temper  is  not  imprudent.  For  a  period  of 
about  twenty  years,  since  he  had  ceased  to  be  a 
child,  he  had  depended  wholly  upon  the  generosity 
of  his  father  and  his  friends.  His  means  were 
uncertain  in  amount,  and  what  he  received  he 
spent  freely  and  carelessly.  He  was  never  more 
at  his  ease  than  he  was  then.  The  purse  of  some 
acquaintance  was  always  open  to  him,  and  to 
repay  a  loan  was  not  merely  a  duty  in  which  he 
never  failed,  but  a  pleasure,  which  brought  with 
it  a  sense  of  freedom  and  lightness.  He  lived  with 
no  sense  of  security  or  the  reverse,  as  do  so 
many  from  day  to  day,  and  his  experience  was 
that  he  could  always  be  jocund,  trusting  to  his 
lucky  star. 

Such  was  Montaigne's  first  state  in  relation  to 
money.  The  second  was  less  happy.  He  pos- 
sessed money  which  he  could  call  his  own,  and  in  a 
short  time  he  had  saved  a  very  considerable  sum. 
The  thought  of  the  uncertainty  of  riches  came  to 
haunt  him.  He  said  not  a  word  to  any  one  of  the 
growing  hoard,  which,  he  thought,  never  could 
be  large  enough  to  guard  against  all  possible  con- 
tingencies. Contrary  to  his  instinct  of  truthful- 
ness, he  would  even  at  times  profess  that  he  was 

122 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

poor.  If  he  journeyed,  he  loaded  himself  with 
gold,  and  at  the  same  time  loaded  himself  with 
fears  for  its  safety.  If  he  left  his  cash-box  be- 
hind, he  was  filled  with  suspicions,  which  he  dared 
not  communicate  to  the  most  trusted  friend. 
It  is  possible  that  in  all  this,  as  he  records  it,  there 
may  have  been  an  exaggeration  of  the  memory, 
but  we  cannot  doubt  that  he  had  troubled  his  own 
calm.  He  dared  not  break  in  upon  his  reserve 
fund;  it  lay  idly  growing,  and  he  found  himself 
degraded  into  its  impoverished  guardian.  Hap- 
pily his  various  and  undulating  nature  saved  him, 
and  that  of  a  sudden,  from  ending  his  life  in  mi- 
serly narrowness  of  soul.  The  pleasure  which  he 
had  in  a  certain  journey — probably  that  to  Ger- 
many and  Italy — taken  at  great  expense,  made 
him  cast  under  foot,  as  he  expresses  it,  his  foolish 
imaginings.  A  third  state  in  relation  to  money 
followed  for  Montaigne — one  more  enjoyable, 
and,  if  rightly  considered,  more  orderly  than 
either  of  its  predecessors.  He  cut  his  garment 
according  to  his  cloth — so  the  translator  Florio 
gives  the  sense  though  not  the  words  of  his  orig- 
inal; his  outgoings  just  matched  his  incomings. 
He  lived  from  day  to  day  content  to  have  where- 
withal to  meet  the  day's  demands.  He  reformed 
his  temper  with  respect  to  worldly  goods.  He 
trusted  to  the  inward  resources  of  his  spirit  as 
alone  sufficient  to  confront  all  possible  infelicities 
123 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

of  fortune.  "  If  I  lay  up  anything,  it  is  in  the 
hope  of  some  employment  for  it  near  at  hand,  not 
to  purchase  land  of  which  I  have  no  need,  but  t© 
purchase  pleasure."  It  was  a  source  of  joy  to  his 
heart  that  he  had  so  reformed  himself  in  a  grasp- 
ing age,  and  before  the  arrival  of  those  years  of 
life  when  avarice,  the  most  ridiculous  of  human 
follies,  lays  hold  of  many  men. 

A  duty  of  piety  occupied  Montaigne  and 
diverted  him  from  worldly  cares  for  some  time 
after  his  father's  death.  Many  years  previously  a 
distinguished  Latinist,  Pierre  Bunel,  who  died  in 
1546,  had  stayed  for  some  days  at  the  chateau  of 
Montaigne  as  one  of  a  company  of  learned  men. 
At  his  departure  he  presented  his  host,  Michel's 
father,  with  a  copy  of  a  book  entitled  Natural 
Theology,  or  the  Book  of  Creatures,  by  Master 
Raimond  de  Sebonde.  Bunel  hoped  that  Pierre 
de  Montaigne,  who  was  acquainted  with  both  Ital- 
ian and  Spanish,  would  not  find  this  work  difficult 
to  read,  written,  as  it  was,  in  a  Latin  which  was 
far  from  classical.  It  might  prove  useful  to  him, 
especially  at  a  time  when  the  doctrines  of  Luther 
were  obtaining  credit,  and  shaking  the  Faith.  "  In 
which  opinion,"  says  the  Essayist,  "  he  was  very 
well  advised,  rightly  perceiving,  by  discourse  of 
reason,  that  the  beginning  of  this  distemper  would 
easily  grow  into  an  execrable  atheism."  Some 
days  before  Pierre's  death,  his  son  tells  us — but 
124 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

in  reality  it  must  have  been  many  days  * — the  old 
man,  having  found  the  book  under  a  heap  of 
papers  cast  aside,  ordered  Michel  to  put  it  for  his 
use  into  French.  The  task  was  no  light  one,  for 
Sebonde's  Natural  Theology  was  of  considerable 
size ;  but  Michel  had  leisure,  and  he  could  not  re- 
fuse to  comply  with  the  wishes  of  the  best  father 
that  ever  lived.  The  work  of  a  translator  was  new 
to  him ;  he  did  what  he  could ;  his  father  was 
highly  pleased  with  what  he  saw,  and  directed  that 
the  book  should  be  printed.  Printed  accordingly 
it  was,  but  after  the  old  man's  death.  The  license, 
which  does  not  mention  the  translator's  name,  and 
refers  to  the  volume  under  the  title  Lc  Livre  des 
Creatures,  is  dated  October  17,  1568.  The  trans- 
lation was  published  in  Paris  at  the  close  of  the 
year,  with  the  date  of  the  new  year,  1569,  upon 
the  title-page.  It  is  named,  not  The  Book  of  Crea- 
tures, but  by  the  first  title  of  the  original,  The 
Natural  Theology  of  Raymond  Sehon,  and  the 
title-page  goes  on  to  describe  the  work  as  a 
demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian  and 
Catholic  faith,  derived  from  the  order  of  Nature. 

*  Perhaps  a  year.  Montaigne  speaks  of  "  last  year" 
in  the  dedication  of  his  translation,  which  he  dates  June 
18,  1568.  But  we  cannot  rely  on  such  a  statement.  M. 
Courbet  carries  the  date  back  as  far  as  the  time  follow- 
ing La  Boetie's  death,  and  conjectures  that  the  transla- 
tion was  proposed  to  Montaigne  as  a  distraction  from  his 
melancholy. 

125 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Montaigne  did  his  work  well.  The  translation 
is  faithful  yet  spirited,  enlivened  by  vivid  touches 
and  phrases  which  are  characteristic  of  the  author 
of  the  Essays.  Apart  from  the  manner  in  which 
he  executed  his  task  and  the  dedicatory  address  to 
his  father,  dated  reverentially  June  i8,  1568,  the 
day  on  which  Pierre  de  Montaigne  died,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  volume  which  presents  the  thought 
or  feeling  of  the  translator.  The  argument  of  the 
book,  however,  as  readers  of  the  Essays  are 
aware,  reacted  in  a  singular  degree  and  after  a 
strange  fashion  upon  his  intellect.  If  his  father 
had  thought  of  confirming  a  son's  wavering  faith 
in  the  Christian  religion,  by  requiring  him  to  sub- 
mit his  understanding  to  that  of  Sebonde,  the  re- 
sult would  probably  have  startled  the  simple 
Pierre,  had  he  lived  to  read  the  Essays,  the  long- 
est and  most  laboured  chapter  of  which  is  devoted 
to  both  sapping  and  buttressing  the  argument  of 
the  fifteenth-century  apologist  for  theism  and 
Christianity.  Only  by  forming  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  drift  of  Sebonde's  contention  can 
we  adequately  appreciate  the  destructive  criticism 
of  Montaigne. 

Of  the  history  of  his  author  the  translator  knew 
little,  and  little  is  known  at  the  present  day.  He 
supposed  that  Sebonde  was  a  Spaniard  who  pro- 
fessed medicine  at  Toulouse  "  about  two  hundred 
years  ago".  On  inquiring  of  Adrien  Turnebe, 
126 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

whose  learning  is  eulogised  in  the  Essays,  what 
the  book  might  be,  Turnebe  replied  that  he  sup- 
posed it  was  some  quintessence  drawn  from  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas.  That  Sebonde  was  a  Spaniard 
is  uncertain;  he  was  a  doctor  of  medicine  and 
of  theology  who  taught  at  Toulouse,  as  Mon- 
taigne believed;  but  his  book,  which  was  written 
for  his  pupils  at  the  university,  is  not  of  earlier 
date  than  1434;  its  author  died  two  years  later, 
less  than  a  century  before  the  birth  of  Montaigne. 
It  was  printed  at  Deventer  about  1484 — perhaps 
earlier.  In  1551  appeared  an  abridgement,  with 
variations  in  style  and  substance,  by  Pierre  Gar- 
land, under  the  title  Viola  animi,  which  had 
considerable  popularity  as  a  manual  for  the  faith- 
ful. There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this 
abridgement  had  ever  been  in  the  hands  of  Mon- 
taigne.* 

The  Natural  Theology,  even  in  Montaigne's 
translation,  is  not  a  piece  of  light  reading;  but  it 
contains  an  interesting  and  well-marshalled  argu- 
ment, and  some  pages  are  written  with  a  genuine 
and  lofty  eloquence.  It  was  studied  by  Pascal 
and  perhaps  by  Leibnitz ;  it  was  admired  by  Vic- 
tor Le  Clerc.  The  Council  of  Trent  condemned 
it;    under  Benedict  XIV.  the  condemnation  was 

*  This  abridgement  was  put  forth  at  the  request  of 
Queen  Eleanor  of  Austria  by  Jean  Martin,  secretary  to 
the  Cardinal  de  Lenoncourt. 

127 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

withdrawn.  Here,  with  a  view  to  the  illustration 
of  Montaigne's  singular  Apology — to  be  spoken 
of  later — some  of  its  leading  thoughts  deserve  a 
brief  notice. 

The  design  of  Sebonde  is  to  exhibit  an  argu- 
ment, entirely  derived  from  human  reason,  by 
which  a  man  may  be  delivered  from  religious 
doubts,  and  may  be  led  on  to  the  love  of  God  and 
his  fellow  men,  and  to  all  those  duties  which  love 
prescribes.  God  has  given  us  two  books :  first, 
the  universal  order  of  things  which  we  name  Na- 
ture; and,  second,  the  Divine  Word,  which  we 
name  the  Bible.  In  the  book  of  Nature  every 
creature  is,  as  it  were,  a  letter  inscribed  by  God's 
own  hand,  and  the  capital  letter  is  man.  From 
these  letters  words  are  formed,  and  from  these 
words  a  science,  full  of  grave  sentences  with  many 
deep  meanings.  This  Book  of  Nature  cannot 
falsify  itself,  nor  is  it  to  be  easily  interpreted 
falsely,  as  too  often  the  Bible  has  been.  The  Book 
of  Nature  and  the  Book  of  Revelation  agree,  in 
all  essentials,  the  one  with  the  other. 

By  the  knowledge  of  Nature  we  ascend  to  God. 
Man  naturally  desires  the  certitude  of  truth.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  he  would' most  readily  find 
this  by  looking  into  what  lies  nearest  to  him — his 
own  nature.  But,  in  fact,  man,  in  his  present 
fallen  condition,  is  far  removed  from  his  true  self. 
He  can  best  discover  that  true  self  by  climbing  the 
128 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

ladder  or  scale  of  creatures,  at  the  top  of  which 
stands  the  ideal  man.  Thus  he  may  perceive  his 
veritable  being,  and  may  even  feel  after  that 
which  is  above  him,  if  haply  he  may  find  it.  By 
way  of  the  inferior  creatures,  each  group  of  these, 
as  he  examines  it,  being  viewed  in  its  place  in  the 
general  scheme  of  the  universe,  he  may  advance 
upon  himself,  and  then  he  will  learn  that  the  scale 
is  still  incomplete — that  it  reaches  upward  beyond 
himself  and  conducts  him  inevitably  to  God. 
From  inanimate  objects  in  this  ladder  of  existence 
we  rise  to  animate  creatures,  to  beings  that  are 
sensitive  as  well  as  animate,  and  again  to  a  crea- 
ture that  not  only  lives  and  feels,  but  thinks  and 
is  the  possessor  of  free  will.  Above  such  a  being 
is  God,  and  in  God  man's  highest  attributes  have 
illimitable  scope  and  play. 

Our  understanding  has  in  it  a  prophecy  of  some 
higher  state  than  this  in  which  we  live  and  move. 
Its  powers  exceed  our  present  uses ;  in  some  re- 
spects it  rather  mars  than  makes  this  our  earthly 
life.  Its  true  ends  and  objects  are  not  of  this  ter- 
restrial world.  Every  passion,  every  thought  of 
man  finds  its  satisfaction  not  in  things  of  mor- 
tality but  in  the  being  of  God.  From  man's 
greatness  arises  the  knowledge  of  God ;  from  his 
feebleness,  the  need  of  Divine  help. 

Having  discovered  our  true  nature  we  obtain 
thereby  a  standard  and  a  test  of  truth.  Every 
9  129 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

creature  seeks  its  own  well-being,  the  joyous  de- 
velopment of  its  life.  Whatever  belief  aids  our 
nature  towards  its  fullest  attainment,  its  complete 
possibilities,  is  true.  Whatever  opinion  impairs 
our  growth  and  checks  our  well-being  is  false. 
Thus,  the  belief  that  there  is  a  God  brings  with  it 
an  infinite  and  incomprehensible  good.  The  opin- 
ion that  there  is  no  God  brings  with  it  the  priva- 
tion of  a  measureless  gain,  and  stunts  our  growth. 
Shall  we  not  settle  and  fix  our  faith  upon  that 
which  is  fertile  and  fruitful  rather  than  upon  that 
which  is  sterile  and  sterilising?  Obedience  to  the 
law  of  Nature,  therefore,  which  requires  every 
creature  to  seek  its  own  highest  development,  en- 
sures the  belief  in  a  Divine  Being.  Our  content, 
our  hope,  our  consolation,  our  aspiration,  all  re- 
main suppressed  or  thwarted  unless  we  look 
upwards  to  God.* 

We  are  not  left  to  guess  respecting  the  ob- 
jections which  arose  in  Montaigne's  mind  as  he 
traversed  this  long  and  sometimes  tedious  apol- 
ogy for  religion.  The  hierarchy  of  creatures, 
conceived  by  Sebonde,  did  not  impress  his  imag- 
ination by  its  beauty  of  order  or  its  strict  enchain- 
ment.    He  degrades  humanity  from  the  pre-emi- 

*  In  the  above  notice  of  some  ideas  of  Sebonde's  book 
I  have  been  in  part  guided  by  M.  Aime  Martin's  apergu, 
given  in  the  edition  of  Montaigne's  Essais,  Garnier  Freres, 
1866,  vol.  iv,  pp.  305-339- 

130 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

nence  assigned  to  it  by  the  author  of  The  Natural 
Theology.  He  finds  the  understanding,  which  for 
Sebonde  was  a  sacred  instrument  of  illumination, 
to  be  a  poor,  wavering,  uncertain  source  of  error 
and  illusion.  He  applies  his  subtle  dissolvent  to 
every  syllogism  of  the  apologist  for  whom  he 
apologises.  He  regards  human  nature  as  it  is 
with  an  ironical  smile  which  is  fatal  to  all  our 
lofty  pretensions.  He  ends  with  his  gently  re- 
morseless question,  "  Que  sgay-jc?" 

Yet,  while  he  was  engaged  on  his  translation  of 
Sebonde,  there  was  one  thing  which  Montaigne 
never  doubted — that  his  good  father  was  worthy 
of  all  reverence  and  afifection.  Compliance  with 
such  a  .father's  wishes  and  regard  for  his  memory 
might  justly  make  a  demand  upon  his  time  and 
patience,  and  the  response  to  that  demand  should 
be  dutiful  and  cheerful.  Nor  did  Montaigne  at 
this  time  forget  his  dead  friend.  La  Boetie.  It 
was  his  hope  that  a  monument,  small  but  perhaps 
enduring,  might  by  his  own  care  be  erected  in 
honour  of  that  friend.  The  manuscripts  left  by 
La  Boetie  had  been  in  Montaigne's  hands  since 
1563.  In  the  autumn  of  1570  he  came  to  Paris  to 
superintend  personally  the  printing  of  those 
which  he  considered  suitable  for  publication. 
Errors  of  the  press  in  his  translation  of  Sebonde 
had  made  him  distrustful  of  the  accuracy  of  print- 
ers working  without  close  supervision.  The 
131 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

writings  of  his  friend  which  were  connected  with 
pohtics,  whether  partly  ideal  politics,  such  as  are 
discussed  in  the  Contr'un,  or  the  practical  politics 
of  the  Memoirs  suggested  by  the  edict  of  January, 
1562,  he  did  not  intend  at  present  to  issue.  But 
La  Boetie  had  been  not  only  a  man  of  affairs ;  he 
had  been  a  distinguished  classical  scholar,  and  a 
poet.  He  had  given  valuable  aid  to  his  friend  and 
colleague,  Arnaud  de  Ferron,  in  determining  the 
text  of  Plutarch's  treatise  on  Love,  a  French 
version  of  which  Ferron  had  published  in  1557. 
With  such  philological  notes  as  these  Montaigne 
had  no  concern.  But  La  Boetie  had  himself  trans- 
lated Plutarch's  Rules  of  Marriage,  wdiich,  for 
France  of  his  own  time,  had  a  special  attraction, 
as  is  evidenced  by  various  other  contemporary 
translations.  Pie  had  rendered  into  French  Plu- 
tarch's Letter  of  Consolation,  written  to  his  wife 
after  the  death  of  a  daughter.  He  had  translated 
Xenophon's  charming  dialogue,  The  Economics, 
under  the  title  La  Mcsnagerie  dc  Xenophon,  and 
in  doing  this  La  Boetie  had  no  predecessor.  His 
work  was  that  of  an  accomplished  student  of 
Greek,  if  not  that  of  a  great  master  of  French 
prose,  such  as  was  Amyot.  Beside  these  transla- 
tions of  La  Boetie,  his  Latin  poems  were  well 
worthy  of  preservation.  Greek  verses,  known  to 
have  been  written  by  him,  were  not  to  be  found. 
It  was  the  writer's  way  to  unburden  himself 
132 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATPI    TO    1570 

swiftly  of  whatever  fancy  occupied  his  brain, 
using  the  first  scrap  of  paper  that  came  to  his 
hands,  and  taking  no  care  to  preserve  what  he  had 
written.  As  to  his  French  verses,  Montaigne  es- 
teemed them  more  highly  than  their  merit  quite 
warranted.  The  title-page  of  the  slender  volume 
of  La  Boetie's  remains  announces  that  these 
verses  formed  part  of  its  contents.  Montaigne  had 
been  discouraged  by  the  opinion  of  friends — 
among  them  probably  the  poet  Baif — to  whom  he 
had  shown  this  part  of  La  Boetie's  work,  and 
who  had  pronounced  that  more  labour  of  the  file 
than  had  been  bestowed  was  needed.  Whether 
Montaigne  himself  applied  the  file  we  do  not 
know;  but  the  Vers  Frarigois  appeared  in  a  sep- 
arate slender  sheaf — of  which  one  copy  apart 
from  the  prose  writings  and  Latin  verses  has  sur- 
vived— in  the  same  year  (1571)  which  saw  the 
publication  of  La  Mcsnageric  and  the  other  re- 
mains. The  French  Verses  include  a  series  of 
twenty-five  sonnets  addressed  by  La  Boetie  to 
Marguerite  de  Carle,  in  which,  as  compared  with 
the  twenty-nine  sonnets  afterwards  published  in 
the  first  edition  of  the  Essays  ( 1580),  Montaigne 
supposed  that  he  could  detect  a  touch  of  marital 
coldness. 

We  are  not  here  concerned  with  the  merits  of 
La  Boetie's  work  as  a  translator  or  a  poet.     But 
Montaigne's     general     Advertisement     to     the 
133 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Reader,  and  his  special  dedications  of  each  sec- 
tion of  La  Boetie's  writings  may  be  regarded  as, 
in  a  certain  sense,  anticipations  of  part  of  the 
noble  and  touching  essay  on  Friendship.  The 
dedication  addressed  to  his  wife  has  been  referred 
to  already.  While  he  was  in  Paris,  engaged  in 
his  labours  of  affectionate  duty  to  the  memory  of 
his  friend,  he  received  tidings  of  the  death  of  his 
first  daughter,  to  whom  in  his  absence  his  wife 
and  her  father  had  given  the  name  Thoinette.  We 
know  the  precise  date  of  her  birth,  June  28,  1570. 
One  of  the  most  precious  of  the  volumes  in  which 
Montaigne's  handwriting  appears  is  a  vellum- 
bound  copy,  mutilated  and  injured  by  damp,  of 
the  Ephemerides  of  Michael  Beuther,  published  in 
the  year  1551.  Each  month  of  the  year,  and  each 
day  of  the  month,  receives  a  special  printed  arti- 
cle, which  is  so  arranged  by  the  printer  as  to  leave 
half  of  the  page  blank,  in  order  that  the  owner 
might  inscribe  in  the  blank  spaces  his  own  private 
memoranda.  Montaigne's  copy,  first  described  by 
Dr.  Payen  in  1855,*  is  enriched  with  forty-one 
entries  in  his  handwriting  and  five  in  that  of  his 
daughter,  fileanore.  They  record,  under  the 
proper  dates,  births,  marriages,  deaths,  and  events 
of  personal  importance,  such  as  the  bestowal  upon 

*  Documents    inedits   sur   Montaigne,    No.    3,    Paris,    P. 
Jannet,  1855. 

134 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

him  of  the  Collar  of  St.  Michael,  and  his  appoint- 
ment as  a  Gentleman  of  the  Chamber  by  King 
Henri  of  Navarre.  The  autograph  note  for  June 
28  tells  us  that  his  little  Thoinette  died  two 
months  after  her  birth  on  that  day  of  the  year 
1570.  The  news  of  his  loss  must  have  taken  sev- 
eral days  to  reach  Paris.  Montaigne  may  possi- 
bly have  learnt  the  event  on  September  10,  the 
date  affixed  to  the  dedication  of  La  Boetie's 
French  version  of  Plutarch's  Letter  of  Consola- 
tion, which,  in  words  of  tender  and  cordial  affec- 
tion, the  editor  presents  to  "  Madamoiselle  Dc- 
Montaigne,  ma  Femme".  He  had  been  commu- 
nicating La  Boetie's  writings,  he  tells  her,  to  his 
friends,  and  her  he  reckons  among  the  most  inti- 
mate of  these.  By  a  singular  inadvertence  of  the 
writer  or  error  of  the  press,  the  infant  is  referred 
to  in  this  dedication  as  having  died  not  in  the  sec- 
ond month  but  the  second  year  of  her  life.* 

The  general  address  to  the  reader  tells  in  a  few 
words  all  that  is  needful  about  the  character  of 
the  volume,  and  Montaigne's  connection  with  it, 


*  I  venture  to  suggest  the  possibility  of  Montaigne's 
having  made  the  entry  in  the  Ephemerides  at  a  consider- 
ably later  date,  when  he  had  forgotten  the  year  of  Thoin- 
ette's  birth  and  her  age  when  she  died.  The  dedication 
speaks  of  the  child  as  born  at  the  end  of  four  childless 
years;  and  Montaigne  was  married  in  September,  1565. 
June  1569  would  be  not  far  from  the  end  of  four  years. 

135 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

as  the  friend  of  La  Boetie,  and  the  inheritor  of  his 
books  and  papers.  The  Economics  of  Xenophon 
is  dedicated  to  a  favourite  of  the  Queen  Mother, 
the  diplomatist  M.  de  Lansac,  Much  as  he  may 
have  known  of  La  Boetie's  great  quahties,  says 
Montaigne,  he  cannot  have  adequately  known  or 
esteemed  the  man.  To  tell  the  whole  truth  about 
him,  who  was  "  so  nearly  a  miracle",  would  be  to 
run  the  risk  of  being  discredited  as  one  who  deals 
in  fantastic  exaggeration.  The  dedication  con- 
tains a  hint  that  Montaigne  might  have  offered 
something  of  his  own  authorship  to  M.  de  Lansac, 
were  he  not  restrained  by  a  sense  of  his  insuffi- 
ciency. Plutarch's  Rules  of  Marriage  are  pre- 
sented to  a  person  of  high  distinction — Henri  de 
Mesmes.  Rules  of  marriage  are  for  him,  indeed, 
a  useless  gift;  but  his  wife,  Madame  de  Roissy, 
seeing  in  Plutarch  "  the  order  of  her  household 
and  her  husband's  good  accord  presented  to  the 
life",  may  be  gratified  to  find  that  the  goodness  of 
her  own  natural  disposition  has  not  only  attained 
but  surpassed  that  which  the  wisest  philosophers 
could  imagine  of  the  duties  and  the  laws  of  wed- 
lock— so  gracefully  could  Montaigne  turn  a  com- 
pliment. But  the  passage  of  chief  interest  in  this 
dedication  is  one  in  which  the  writer  makes  use 
of  a  favourite  thought  of  Sebonde,  presenting  it 
as  a  reason  for  not  disturbing  beliefs  which, 
affording  mankind  contentment  and  satisfaction, 
136 


LA    BOETIE'S    DEATH    TO    1570 

have  been  generally  received.  Everything  under 
the  heavens,  he  says,  employs  the  means  and  in- 
struments afforded  it  by  nature  to  further  its  life 
and  render  its  state  commodious.  But  some  men, 
to  show  a  gay  and  sprightly  wit,  have  applied 
their  understanding  to  the  dissolving  of  opinions, 
which  serve  us  well,  and  have  preferred  the  un- 
happy state  of  doubt  and  feverish  disquietude  to 
the  possession  of  a  wise  repose.  They  have 
mocked  at  posthumous  fame  and  even  at  the  be- 
lief in  a  future  life.  For  his  own  part,  Montaigne 
will  go  with  the  common  opinion,  as  offering  a 
great  consolation  for  an  existence  so  short  and 
feeble  as  that  of  a  man  on  earth.  He  will  even 
cherish  the  hope  that  his  dead  friend  is  somehow 
aware  of  his  own  efforts  to  prolong  his  memory, 
and  that  he  is  somehow  touched  with  a  sense  of 
pleasure.  No  one  in  later  years  mocked  our  con- 
cern for  posthumous  reputation  more  pitilessly 
than  Montaigne.  It  is  a  palmary  instance  of 
"  our  affections  going  beyond  themselves".  And 
he  at  that  time  found  in  doubt,  or  if  not  in  doubt 
then  in  admitted  ignorance  and  contented  incuri- 
osity, no  poison  that  produces  a  fever  in  our  veins, 
but  the  gentle  pillow  for  a  weary  head.  So 
diverse,  so  undulant  a  spirit  was  his. 

The  Latin  poems  of  La  Boetie  are  dedicated  to 
the  great  chancellor,  L'Hopital,  fallen  from  power 
since  the  peace  of  Longjumeau  in  1568.     In  the 
137 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Essays  Montaigne  names  L'Hopital  among  the 
chief  Latin  poets  of  the  time.  But  it  is  rather  of 
La  Boetie  in  relation  to  the  service  of  the  state 
than  as  one  who  indulged  in  the  pastime  of  classi- 
cal verse-making  that  Montaigne  desires  to  speak 
to  the  chancellor.  La  Boetie  had  passed  his  whole 
life  in  obscurity  by  his  domestic  hearth;  yet  so 
wisely  regulated  was  his  mind  that  never  was  man 
more  contented  with  his  lot.  For  the  public  ser- 
vice it  was  unfortunate  that  one  who  was  quali- 
fied to  be  a  worthy  captain  should  have  remained 
a  common  soldier;  but  those  who  have  the  be- 
stowal of  office  must  needs  make  their  selection 
out  of  a  thousand;  they  cannot  possibly  always 
discern  the  spirits  of  men;  the  advancement  of 
the  deserving,  if  ever  it  happens,  is  almost  neces- 
sarily an  affair  of  chance.  Nowhere  has  Mon- 
taigne pronounced  a  more  carefully  weighed  or  a 
more  convincing  eulogy  than  in  the  words  of  this 
dedication  which  characterise  the  eminent  quali- 
ties of  his  friend.  The  dedication  closes  by  put- 
ting on  record  La  Boetie's  admiration  of  the 
chancellor,  as  a  great  public  servant,  whose  rule 
was  that  of  virtue,  and  the  reverence  with  which 
Montaigne  himself  regarded  the  fallen  statesman. 
Montaigne's  last  duty  to  his  friend  was  to 
choose  a  patron  for  the  little  gathering  of  French 
poems.  It  was  offered  to  one  of  the  most  culti- 
vated men  of  the  day,  Paul  de  Foix,  who  repre- 
138 


LA    BOETIE'S   DEATH    TO    1570 

sented  France  as  ambassador  at  various  times  in 
Venice,  in  London,  and  in  Rome.  His  death  was 
afterwards  lamented  in  the  essay  on  Vanity  as 
a  serious  loss  to  his  country.  La  Boetie  was  not, 
and  never  could  have  been,  a  poet  of  the  highest 
rank,  but  he  had  a  genuine  enthusiasm  for  literary 
beauty,  and  he  had  something  also  of  the  accom- 
plishment of  verse.  Montaigne  gave  what  he  had 
found,  without  making  any  selection,  "  green 
wood  and  dry  together".  But  other  poems  were 
apparently  at  a  later  time  discovered.  In  the 
Essays  of  1580  Montaigne  presented  to  the  great 
Corisande — Diane  d'Andouins — the  sonnets  of 
La  Boetie  addressed  to  his  early  love.  They  are 
graceful  fantasies  of  passion  after  the  manner  of 
the  later  Renaissance. 


139 


CHAPTER    V 

MONTAIGNE   IN   THE   TOWER 

The  leisure  which  enabled  Montaigne  to  re- 
main in  Paris  for  so  many  months  while  engaged 
in  superintending  the  publication  of  La  Boetie's 
remains  had  been  gained  as  the  result  of  an  im- 
portant decision  in  the  conduct  of  his  life.  In 
July,  1570,  two  years  after  his  father's  death,  he 
resigned  his  position  as  a  councillor  of  the  Par- 
liament of  Bordeaux,  in  favour  of  one  who  was 
afterwards  distinguished  as  a  religious  contro- 
versialist on  the  Catholic  side,  and  the  historian  of 
heresy — Florimond  de  Raymond.  The  duties  of 
a  magistrate,  as  we  have  seen,  had  never  been 
duties  after  Montaigne's  heart.  Upon  the  death 
of  Pierre  Eyquem,  he  did  not  hastily  abandon  the 
profession  chosen  for  him  by  so  considerate  a 
father.  Two  years  had  gone  by,  during  which 
he  made  trial  of  continuing  his  work  as  a  public 
functionary  and  also  attending  to  the  care  of  his 
property  at  Montaigne.  It  seems  as  if  the  trial 
had  not  been  a  success.  Possibly  his  occupation 
as  the  translator  of  Sebonde  had  set  his  mind  in 
motion  in  meditative  ways,  and  he  may  have 
dreamed  that  it  would  be  a  happy  thing  to  disen- 
140 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

cumber  himself  of  alien  eng-agements,  and  let  his 
thoughts  wander  free.  Possibly  the  books  once 
La  Boetie's,  now  his  own,  as  he  turned  from  one 
to  another,  began  to  fling  their  threads  around  his 
soul,  and  made  him  wish  for  hours  to  be  passed 
in  the  outward  quietude  and  inward  stir  natural 
in  such  delightful  company.  Obligations  were 
hateful  to  him  and  freedom  was  attainable.  He 
could  see  to  his  property,  superintend  his  work- 
men, enjoy  long  country  rides — for  he  was 
always  happy  when  on  horseback — and  at  the 
same  time  he  might  economise,  increase  what  had 
been  left  to  him  by  his  father,  lay  by  a  store  of 
money,  and  feel  that  he  was  independent  of  the 
accidents  of  fortune. 

Some  students  of  Montaigne's  life  have  sup- 
posed that,  before  settling  down  to  the  life  of  a 
country  gentleman,  he  entered  for  a  time  upon 
the  military  career,  exchanging  the  robe  for  the 
sword.  It  is  true  that  in  the  monument,  erected 
by  his  widow  in  the  church  of  the  Feuillants  at 
Bordeaux,  the  figure  of  the  author  of  the  Essays 
— a  man  of  peace,  as  we  think  of  him — is  clad 
in  armour,  with  casque  and  brassarts  by  his  side, 
a  lion  couchant  at  his  feet.  Perhaps  Montaigne's 
widow  regarded  the  fact  that  her  husband  had 
been  a  chevalier  of  the  Order  of  St.  Michael  as 
the  chief  honour  of  his  life.  The  Order  was 
founded  by  Louis  XL  in  1469,  and  its  members 
141 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

were  expressly  confined  to  "  gentlemen  of  name 
and  arms".  A  month  after  Montaigne's  resigna- 
tion of  his  office  as  councillor  the  third  civil  war 
had  closed  with  the  treaty  of  St.  Germain.  The 
country  was  at  peace;  even  if  the  treaty  were  but 
a  snare,  the  country  wore  a  delusive  mask  of  con- 
ciliation. There  are  references  to  Montaigne  in 
Brantome — of  a  mocking  kind — and  in  other 
contemporaries,  which  have  been  taken  to  imply 
that  he  followed  at  some  time,  at  least  in  name, 
the  profession  of  arms.  Passages  in  the  Essays 
unquestionably  point  to  the  fact  that  he  knew  the 
camp  as  well  as  the  court.  He  suffered,  he  tells 
us,  from  the  choking  dust  of  hot  summer 
marches;  he  never  travelled  without  books, 
"  whether  in  peace  or  war";  it  happened  to  him 
sometimes  to  forget  the  watchword,  which,  three 
hours  before,  he  had  given  or  had  received  from 
another.  And  in  the  last  of  all  the  essays  there  is 
a  spirited  eulogy  of  the  soldier's  life,  evidently 
written  by  one  who  had  himself  seen  it :  "  The 
company  of  so  many  noble,  young,  and  active  men 
delights  you ;  the  frequent  view  of  so  many  tragic 
spectacles;  the  freedom  of  converse  without  art, 
and  a  masculine  way  of  living,  without  ceremony; 
the  variety  of  a  thousand  diverse  actions;  the 
rousing  harmony  of  military  music,  which  rav- 
ishes and  inflames  both  the  sense  of  hearing  and 
the  soul ;  the  honour  and  the  noble  character  of 
142 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

the  occupation;  even  its  hardships  and  difficulty." 
But,  while  we  may  believe  that  Montaigne  bore 
arms,  no  one  can  fix  a  date,  or  name  a  military 
achievement.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever 
took  part  in  an  engagement,  or  carried  off,  like 
Ben  Jonson,  his  spolia  opima.  In  1574  the  roy- 
alist commander,  the  Duke  de  Montpensier,  de- 
spatched him,  as  we  learn  from  an  entry  in  the 
Ephcmcridcs  of  Beuther,  from  the  camp  of  St. 
Hermine  on  a  mission  to  the  Parliament  of  Bor- 
deaux. There  is  nothing  to  show  that  Montaigne 
was  attached  to  the  duke  during  the  campaign  in 
Poitou;  he  may  have  been  summoned  from  his 
home  to  act  as  an  emissary  for  a  special  occasion. 
It  may  be,  for  all  we  know,  that  his  sword  had  the 
quality  of  "  innocence"  ascribed  to  it  by  one  of 
his  biographers. 

Montaigne  in  his  tower,  especially  in  his  earlier 
days  of  meditation,  certainly  liked  to  speculate 
concerning  military  events,  and  to  consider  them, 
not  so  much  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  military 
critic  as  from  that  of  human  prudence.  Ought, 
for  instance,  the  commander  of  a  besieged  place 
himself  go  forth  to  parley?  In  times  so  full  of 
ingenious  treachery  as  his  own,  it  seemed  to  Mon- 
taigne to  be  no  part  of  wisdom  to  place  one's  self 
in  the  power  of  adversaries,  though  he  takes  care 
to  tell  us  that  his  own  temper  is  confident  and 
trustful.  Is  it  just,  again,  to  punish  with  death 
143 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

those  who  obstinately  defend  a  position  not  tena- 
ble by  the  rules  of  war?  Was  the  Dnke  of  Guise 
blameworthy  for  his  halts  and  delays  at  the  battle 
of  Dreux?  In  answering  such  questions  as  these 
Montaigne  calls  for  the  assistance  of  Plutarch 
or  Xenophon  as  his  adviser.  Cleomenes  or 
Lucius  /Emilius  Regillus  is  as  much  neigh- 
bour to  him  as  the  Constable  or  the  Ad- 
miral. The  case  of  Philopoemen  in  his  encounter 
with  Machanidas  is  germane  to  that  of  Mon- 
sieur de  Guise.  With  special  interest  Montaigne 
studied  the  method  of  Julius  Caesar  in  making  war 
— ^Julius  C?ssar,  whose  writings  Marshal  Strozzi 
had  named  the  breviary  of  a  soldier,  and  whose 
style  delighted  the  reader  of  the  tower  by  its 
grace  of  directness  and  promptitude,  its  concision 
and  infallible  sureness  in  rendering  action  into 
speech.  Towards  Caesar  as  a  man  Montaigne  had 
a  mingled  feeling;  but  he  could  not  question  that 
Caesar  gave  incomparable  lessons  in  the  records 
of  his  performances  as  a  military  leader.  Yet, 
when  everything  that  human  prudence  can  fore- 
see has  been  provided  for,  and  everything  accom- 
plished that  human  energy  can  achieve,  the  event 
in  war,  as  in  all  else,  is  in  great  measure  deter- 
mined by  those  various,  ever-changing,  incalcula- 
ble forces  which  we  sum  up  under  the  name  of 
Fortune.  Fortune!  Yes,  it  is  this  incalculable 
residuum  of  forces  which  in  the  final  issue  turns 
144 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

victory  to  defeat,  or  defeat  to  victory.  Men  ar- 
rive at  the  same  end  by  wholly  different  methods, 
and  again  the  same  methods  lead  to  quite  opposite 
results.  Our  judgment  is  confounded  by  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  event.  It  is  not  only  that  the 
minds  of  men  are  so  various  and  undulant  that 
we  can  never  count  on  making  the  impression 
upon  them  which  we  intend ;  the  issues  of  action 
seem  equally  variable.  Should  we,  for  example, 
push  home  a  victory?  Yes,  and  no.  To  do  so 
may  lead  to  a  complete  triumph;  or,  arousing  in 
the  enemy  the  courage  of  despair,  to  some  fatal 
reverse.  Or,  again,  should  a  general  disguise  his 
person  in  battle?  Alexander,  C?esar,  and  Lucul- 
lus  loved  to  make  themselves  conspicuous  in  bat- 
tle by  rich  accoutrements,  and  armour  of  a  pecu- 
liar lustre;  Agis  and  Agesilaus  were  wont  to 
tight  obscurely  armed  and  without  imperial  osten- 
tation. We  cannot  tell ;  in  all  things  we  are  ban- 
died as  playthings  of  the  gods. 

In  the  cabinet  of  Montaigne's  tower  which  ad- 
joins his  library,  placed  above  a  painting  which 
represents  a  nude  Venus  reposing,  a  Latin  in- 
scription was  to  be  seen.  In  1850  Dr.  Bertrand 
de  St.  Germain  imperfectly  deciphered  the  faded 
and  partly  obliterated  words.  Eleven  years 
later  the  inscription  was  more  fully  and  exactly 
recovered  by  the  diligence  of  MM.  Galy  and 
Lapeyre.  The  Latin  is  not  always  classical  in  its 
10  145 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

constructions,  and  the  sense  in  one  or  two  points 
is  uncertain;  but,  rendered  into  English,  it  was 
substantially  this :  "  In  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1 571,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  on  the  last  day  of 
February,  being  the  anniversary  of  his  birth, 
Michel  de  Montaigne,  long  weary  of  the  service 
of  the  Court  and  of  public  employments,  while 
still  in  his  full  vigour,  betook  himself  to  the  bosom 
of  the  learned  Virgins ;  where,  if  the  fates  permit, 
he  may  pass,  in  calm  and  freedom  from  all  cares, 
what  little  shall  yet  remain  of  his  allotted  time 
now  more  than  half  run  out.  This  his  ancestral 
abode  and  sweet  retreat  he  has  consecrated  to  his 
freedom,  tranquillity,  and  leisure."  * 

A  period  of  life  had  closed;  a  new  period  was 
opening.  Was  this  retirement  of  Montaigne  an 
act  of  happy  election  of  a  manner  of  life  which 
he  desired  and  loved?  Was  it  an  act  of  resigna- 
tion? He  was  not  a  poet  of  the  romantic  age  who 
could  find  infinite  charm  in  the  solitude  of  the 
fields.  He  was  not,  like  his  contemporary  Olivier 
de  Serres,  interested  and  skilled  in  the  labours  of 
the  agriculturalist.  The  cares  of  household  man- 
agement were  an  affliction  to  him,  or  at  least  he 
came  to  think  them  such.    He  was  eminently  soci- 

*  I  cannot  accept  the  rendering  of  Galy  and  Lapeyre, 
followed  by  M.  Bonnefon,  who  make  Montaigne  express 
his  hope  to  complete  his  ancestral  abode  (taking  exigat 
with  istas  scdcs). 

146 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

able;  the  brightness  and  the  movement  of  Paris 
had  a  strong  attraction  for  him.  He  beHeved  that 
he  was  not  ill-fitted  by  his  natural  disposition,  his 
frank  and  engaging  manner,  his  fidelity  and  his 
discretion,  for  a  part  in  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs.  His  memory,  indeed,  was  defective;  and 
that,  he  felt,  was  a  certain  disqualification  for  bus- 
iness. He  cared  for  distinctions,  but  was  not  a 
lover  of  authority ;  and  that,  no  doubt,  made  some 
of  the  common  aims  of  ambition  distasteful  to 
him.  And,  then,  he  saw  too  many  sides  of  every 
question.  He  could  not  be  a  good  hater,  though 
it  was  a  time  when  a  man  should  support  his  own 
party  even  to  desperation.  He  could  not  be  cruel ; 
he  could  not  be  treacherous;  he  could  not  even 
flatter.  On  the  whole  he  did  not  find  himself  qual- 
ified for  success  in  such  an  age  as  his  own.  He 
withdrew;  and  the  private  life,  which  he  accepted., 
with  a  dignified  resolution,  was  already  deter- 
mined for  him  by  circumstances,  by  his  father's 
prudence  and  care.  If  Montaigne  found  "  the 
bosom  of  the  learned  Virgins"  occasionally  a 
place  of  ennui,  there  was  always,  if  he  could  bring 
himself  to  pay  the  cost,  the  possibility  of  a  jour- 
ney to  Paris  or  of  some  more  distant  wanderings. 
The  chateau  of  Montaigne,  renewed  by  M. 
Magne,  the  minister  of  finance  under  Napoleon 
III.,  was  destroyed  by  fire  on  January  12, 
1885.  Only  the  tower  of  Montaigne  remained 
147 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

uninjured.  The  reconstruction  of  the  building 
by  M.  Thirion-Montauban  follows  the  previous 
design.  Though  styled  a  chateau,  it  was  more 
strictly  a  manor-house — a  landed  proprietor's  res- 
idence, sufficiently  strong  to  oppose  the  sudden  at- 
tack of  a  band  of  marauders,  but  by  no  means 
capable  of  resisting  a  regular  siege.  The  tower, 
which  was  made  originally  for  defence,  was 
hardly  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  structure. 
The  situation  of  the  chateau  was  admirable;  the 
liberal  prospect  was  itself  an  emancipation  for  the 
mind.  The  main  building,  looking  southeast, 
formed  part  of  the  enclosure  of  a  nearly  cjuadri- 
lateral  court,  reached  by  passing  through  an  en- 
trance, for  which  the  tower  might  serve  as  a  pro- 
tection. The  other  sides  of  the  court,  as  described 
by  Dr.  Bertrand  de  St.  Germain  in  1850,  were 
formed  by  the  stables,  the  granaries,  the  cellar, 
and  the  quarters  for  servants.  On  the  northeast, 
opposite  to  the  entrance  and  the  tower  of  Mon- 
taigne, was  another  tower  known  as  the  Trachere, 
in  which  it  is  supposed  that  either  Montaigne's 
mother  or  his  wife  had  her  apartment.  Many 
alterations,  in  the  course  of  later  years,  had  been 
efifected  in  the  interior.  The  so-called  royal  cham- 
ber, for  example,  occupied,  as  tradition  told,  by 
Henri  of  Navarre  on  his  visits  to  Montaigne,  was 
at  a  comparatively  recent  date  divided  into 
smaller  rooms.  Altogether,  if  not  splendid,  the 
148 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

chateau  was  abundantly  spacious,  and  it  had 
something"  of  originahty,  something  of  old-fash- 
ioned grace  in  its  appearance.* 

The  tower  of  Montaigne,  round  and  thickly 
walled,  contiguous  to  a  square  tower,  with  con- 
nected rooms,  was  entered  from  the  portal  which 
led  to  the  court.  On  the  ground  floor,  which 
Montaigne  reckons  as  the  first  story,  a  round  and 
vaulted  chamber,  dimly  lighted  by  two  small 
apertures,  served  as  a  chapel.  The  stone  altar 
occupied  a  niche  in  the  wall.  A  fresco  of  St. 
Michael  and  the  dragon  was  the  pious  decoration, 
with  the  arms  of  Montaigne  to  right  and  left, 
surrounded  by  the  collar  of  his  order.  "  I 
bear  azure,"  he  wrote  in  the  essay  on  Names, 
"  seme  of  trefoils,  or,  a  lion's  paw  of  the  same 
fessways,  armed  gules."  The  owner  of  the  cha- 
teau valued  his  arms  and  displayed  them  with 
pride.  He  thought,  with  a  little  regret,  that  a 
son-in-law  would  transfer  them  into  another  fam- 
ily, or  that  some  paltry  purchaser  might  after- 
wards appropriate  them  for  a  fictitious  coat. 
Through  an  opening  the  chapel  communicated 
with  the  first  story  (called  by  Montaigne  the  sec- 
ond), where  in  his  sleeping-apartment  the  apolo- 

*  See,  beside  Dr.  B.  de  St.  Germain's  pamphlet,  the  Nou- 
veaux  Dociiiiiciits  (1850)  of  Dr.  Payen,  with  its  excellent 
plans  and  pictures,  and  Galy  and  Lapeyre's  Montaigne 
cliec  lui  (1861). 

149 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

gist  for  Sebonde  could  hear  the  blessed  mutter  of 
the  mass  with  the  utmost  economy  of  exertion  and 
fatigue.  On  the  summit  of  the  tower  in  Mon- 
taigne's time  was  a  belfry  wherein  hung  a  very 
great  bell,  which,  with  its  Ave  Maria  morning 
and  evening,  "astonished"  the  very  walls;  yet — 
so  much  is  a  human  being  the  creature  of  custom 
— to  the  noise  which  at  first  had  seemed  insup- 
portable the  occupant  of  the  tower  soon  became 
so  indifferent  that  it  did  not  even  disturb  his 
slumbers. 

By  a  stone  spiral  staircase  the  bedchamber, 
above  the  chapel,  is  reached.  In  this  circular 
room,  lit  by  two  small  windows  and  possessing  a 
large  fireplace,  Montaigne  slept  when  he  desired 
to  be  alone.  Yet  the  existence  of  Mademoiselle 
de  Montaigne  is  perhaps  recognised  here;  over 
the  mantelpiece  letters,  including  on  M  and  a  C — 
which  may  have  signified  Montaigne  and  Chas- 
saigne — are  interlaced.* 

The  second  story — Montaigne's  third — is  the 
true  sanctuary  and  place  of  pilgrimage.  The 
Essayist  himself  shall  describe  it  for  us : 

"  When  at  home,  I  resort  a  little  more  often  to  my 
library,  whence  I  overlook  at  once  all  the  concerns  of 
my  household.     I  enter  it,  and  see  below  me  my  garden, 

*  Galy    and    Lapeyre    suggest    that    Ave    Maria    Casta 
Carissima  may  be  the  interpretation  of  the  letters. 
150 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

my  base-court,  my  court,  and  almost  all  parts  of  my 
house.  There  I  turn  over  now  one  book,  now  another, 
without  order  or  design,  in  disconnected  portions.  One 
while  I  meditate,  another  I  set  down  notes ;  and  dictate 
letting  my  fancies  wander  as  they  do  now.  'Tis  in  the 
third  story  of  a  tower ;  the  first  is  my  chapel ;  the  second 
is  my  bedchamber,  with  its  closet,  where  I  often  lie  in 
order  to  be  alone.  Above  this  is  a  large  room,  a  ward- 
robe, formerly  the  most  useless  part  of  the  house.  Here 
I  pass  the  greater  part  of  the  days  of  my  life,  and  greater 
part  of  the  hours  of  the  day ;  I  am  never  here  at  night. 
Adjoining  it  is  a  cabinet  elegant  enough,  capable  of  re- 
ceiving a  fire  in  winter,  with  windows  very  pleasantly  con- 
trived. And  if  I  did  not  dread  the  trouble  more  than  the 
cost — trouble,  which  drives  me  away  from  business  of  every 
kind — I  could  easily  connect  a  gallery  on  either  side,  a 
hundred  paces  in  length  and  twelve  in  breadth,  having 
found  the  walls  erected  for  another  purpose  to  the  height 
I  should  require.  Every  place  of  retirement  requires  a 
walk ;  my  thoughts  sleep  if  they  sit  still  with  me ;  my 
mind  does  not  walk  of  itself — as  though  it  were  the  legs 
that  put  it  in  motion ;  those  who  study  without  a  book 
are  all  like  this.  The  shape  of  my  room  is  circular,  and 
there  is  no  more  flat  wall  than  serves  for  my  chair  and 
table;  as  it  curves,  it  presents  to  my  view  all  my  books 
ranged  on  five  rows  of  shelves  around  me.  It  has  three 
windows,  with  prospects  noble  and  free,  and  is  sixteen 
paces  in  diameter.  In  winter  I  am  not  so  continually  there ; 
for  my  house,  as  its  name  imports,  is  perched  upon  an 
eminence,  and  no  part  of  it  is  more  wind-swept  than  this. 
I  like  it  as  being  less  easy  of  access  and  more  out  of  the 
way,  both  for  the  sake  of  exercise  and  because  it  keeps  me 
from  the  throng.  There  is  my  throne,  and  I  try  to  make 
my  monarchy  absolute,  and  to  sequester  this  one  corner 
from  all  community,  whether  conjugal,  filial,  or  civil;  else- 
where I  have  but  a  verbal  authority,  and  in  substance  of  a 
mixed  kind.  Miserable,  to  my  thinking,  is  he  who  in  his 
151 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

home  has  no  place  where  he  can  be  his  own  sole  company ; 
where  he  may  invite  his  mind ;  where  he  may  lurk  secure. 
Ambition  pays  her  followers  handsomely  by  keeping  them 
always  on  show,  like  a  statue  in  the  market-place.  ...  If 
any  one  tells  me  that  it  is  to  degrade  the  Muses  to  use 
them  only  as  playthings  and  pastimes,  he  little  knows,  as 
I  do,  of  how  great  worth  the  pleasure,  the  sport,  the 
pastime  is."  * 

The  "  cabinet  assc:2  poly",  which  adjoins  the 
hbrary,  was  designed  especially  for  ease  and  com- 
fort. It  would  have  been  difficult  to  warm  the 
larger  room  when  the  winds  of  winter  blew  upon 
the  tower.  Here  the  philosopher,  though  he  pre- 
ferred warmth  of  the  sun  or  warmth  of  exercise, 
could  sit  before  his  fire  reading  or  meditating. 
Above  the  entrance  to  the  cabinet  is  an  allegorical 
medallion  of  ships  at  sea — one  in  full  sail,  one  all 
but  swallowed  by  the  waves.  The  shipwrecked 
mariners  struggle  shore  wards,  where,  if  fortu- 
nate, they  may  hang  up  their  dripping  garments  in 
the  temple  of  Neptune.  A  Mars  and  Venus  sur- 
prised by  Vulcan  is  above  the  fireplace;  and  sep- 
arated from  this  painting  by  the  arms  of  Mon- 
taigne in  gold,  on  the  mantelpiece  appears  a 
treatment  of  the  familiar  theme  of  Cimon  nour- 
ished in  prison  by  his  daughter  Pero.  A  possible 
significance  of  the  painting  above  the  entrance  can 
readily  be  found.    The  undulant  being,  man,  is  in 

*  Essays,  III,  3. 
152 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

the  wave  of  the  world;  but  he  may,  hke  Mon- 
taigne himself,  see  the  solid  earth  and  the  temple 
— yet  is  it  attainable? — of  the  god.  But  perhaps 
in  calling  it  allegorical  we  read  into  the  design 
more  meaning  than  it  was  intended  to  bear.  Phi- 
losophy had  its  place  in  the  library;  decorative 
luxury  may  have  sufficed  for  the  cabinet.  Shall 
we  not  take  the  treatment  of  themes  from  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses  and  subjects  from  the  chase  as 
meaning  no  more  than  that  Montaigne  had  senses, 
and  wished  to  flatter  them  with  images  which 
gratify  the  eye?  His  painter's  mode  of  working 
reminded  Montaigne  of  his  own  way  of  writing; 
the  artist  finished  the  principal  designs  with  his 
utmost  skill;  he  filled  the  blank  spaces  around 
with  grotesques,  "  fantastic  paintings,  possessing 
no  grace  except  what  may  be  found  in  their 
variety  and  strangeness".  Montaigne  professes 
that  in  his  Essays  he  had  not  the  art  to  achieve  a 
picture  really  beautiful  and  rich  in  colour;  all  he 
could  do  was  to  exhibit  grotesques  and  monstrous 
bodies,  pieced  together  from  various  creatures, 
without  order  or  preparation,  except  such  as 
might  come  into  existence  by  mere  good  luck. 

The  rooms  in  the  tower  are  floored  with  brick, 
and  the  ceilings  leave  the  joists  and  rafters  visible. 
The  joists  and  rafters  of  the  library  constitute  in 
themselves  a  volume  of  disenchanted  wisdom,  for 
on  these  the  occupant  of  the  chamber  inscribed 
153 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

four  and  fifty  sentences,  which  were  ever  visible 
reminders  of  the  conditions  and  the  duties  of  man, 
as  he  conceived  them.  In  certain  instances  later 
inscriptions  superseded  earlier,  which,  however, 
were  not  all  so  effaced  as  to  be  illegible.  Of  these 
sentences  some  were  recorded,  not  with  entire  ex- 
actitude, by  Dr.  Bertrand  de  St.  Germain;  his 
list  of  fourteen  was  increased  to  eighteen  by  Dr. 
Payen;  the  final  reconstitution  of  these  inscrip- 
tions is  due,  substantially,  to  the  two  friends,  M. 
Galy,  and  M.  Lapeyre,  whose  charming  record  of 
their  visit  to  the  chateau  appeared  in  1861.* 

The  chief  sources  from  which  these  sentences 
were  derived  are  Ecclesiastes,  the  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul,  Ecclesiasticus,  the  Hypotyposes  of  Sextus 
Empiricus,  and  the  Florileginm  of  Stobaeus. 
Montaigne  permitted  himself  in  the  case  of  some 
of  his  Latin  quotations  to  modify  at  pleasure  the 
text  of  his  originals.  His  Greek  was  probably 
insuf^cient  to  justify  him  in  such  alterations.  The 
Proverbs  of  Solomon,  the  Psalms,  Isaiah,  Homer, 
Plato,  Epictetus,  Herodotus,  Pliny,  Lucretius, 
Horace,  Persius,  Martial,  furnish  each  a  sentence 

*  Montaigne  ches  lui  (Peregueux:  1861).  John  Ster- 
ling in  the  Westminster  Review  in  1837  had  noticed  the 
inscriptions.  They  are  given  in  full,  in  a  slightly  amended 
form,  in  M.  Bonnefon's  article,  La  Bibliotheque  de  Mon- 
taigne {Revue  d'Histoire  litteraire  de  France;  15,  Juillet, 
1895). 

154 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

or  two.    From  one  contemporary  writer,  L'Hopi- 
tal,  an  inscription  is  taken : 

"  Nostra  vagatur 
In  tcnchris,  ncc  cceca  potest  mens  ccrncre  verum — " 

("  Our  mind  wanders  in  shadows;  blind,  it  can- 
not discern  the  truth".)  The  mottoes  to  guide 
and  control  Montaigne's  meditations  concentrate 
in  a  few  pregnant  utterances  the  spirit  which  is 
diffused  through  many  of  the  essays,  and  espe- 
cially that  essay,  in  itself  almost  a  volume,  which 
constitutes  the  capital  piece  of  the  Second  Book — 
the  Apology  for  Raymond  Scbond.  The  words 
of  Terence,  "  I  am  a  man,  and  regard  nothing 
human  as  alien  from  me",  indicate  the  central 
standpoint  of  the  Essayist.  Another  sentence, 
which  Lucretius  supplies,  serves  to  remind  us  that 
the  earth  on  which  we  move,  the  sea,  the  heavens, 
are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  incompre- 
hensible universe.  And  what,  indeed,  is  this 
humanity  of  which  Montaigne  himself  forms  a 
fragment,  and  which  interests  him  so  deeply? 
"  God  made  man  like  to  a  shadow,  of  which  who, 
after  the  setting  of  the  sun,  shall  judge?"  "All 
is  vanity."  "Why  is  earth  and  ashes  proud?" 
Humility  is  therefore  the  duty  of  such  a  creature, 
a  distrust  of  the  pretentious  intellect,  a  wise  sus- 
pense of  judgment :  "  Be  not  wise  in  your  own 
conceit."  "  There  is  no  reason  which  is  not 
155 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

opposed  by  an  equal  reason."  "  It  may  be,  and 
may  not  be."  "  In  equilibrium."  Yet  there  is  a 
kind  of  wisdom  possible  to  man,  a  prudential, 
temperate  wisdom :  "  Be  not  wise  above  that 
which  is  meet,  but  be  soberly  wise."  "  Rejoice  in 
those  things  that  are  present;  all  else  is  beyond 
thee."  "  The  final  wisdom  for  man  is  to  approve 
things  as  they  are,  and  as  for  the  rest  to  meet  it 
with  confidence."  "  Guiding  ourselves  by  custom 
and  by  the  senses."  This  genuine  wisdom  is  to  be 
attained  by  control  and  regulation  of  the  mind : 
"  Men  are  perturbed  not  by  things  themselves,  but 
by  the  opinions  they  have  of  things."  Let  us 
therefore  pause  and  consider :  "  I  determine 
nothing,  I  do  not  comprehend  things,  I  suspend 
judgment,  I  examine."  If  there  be  any  knowl- 
edge of  divine  truth  for  such  beings  as  we  are,  its 
source  must  be  divine:  "  The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  like  the  great  deep." 

The  scepticism  embodied  in  the  sentences  is  not 
an  absolute  scepticism;  it  might  rather  be  styled 
a  prudential  agnosticism.  Wisdom  is  attainable, 
but  it  is  a  sober  wisdom,  the  wisdom  which  comes 
through  admitting  and  accepting  our  limitations. 
If  there  should  be  any  higher  wisdom  than  this — 
and  the  sentences  make  no  declaration  on  the 
point — it  must  come  to  us  as  a  gift  from  heaven. 

Among  these  inscriptions  of  a  tendency  which 
did  not  seem  to  Montaigne  to  be  desolating,  for 
156 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

the  recognition  of  our  human  bounds  appeared  to 
him  to  be  a  necessary  prehminary  to  the  loyal 
enjoyment  of  life  within  those  bounds,  might  be 
discerned  in  years  now  long  past  another  inscrip- 
tion, which  has  been  truly  called  an  "act  of  faith", 
an  act  of  faith  that  had  its  source  not  in  any  book 
whose  leaves  he  may  have  turned  over,  nor  in  his 
own  questioning  intellect,  but  in  the  grateful 
memory  of  his  heart.  This  inscription,  which  ran 
along  the  frieze  of  his  library  was  seen  and  cop- 
ied by  the  Canon  Prunis,  when  in  the  second  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  he  made  the  fortunate 
discovery  of  the  manuscript  journal  of  Mon- 
taigne's Italian  travels.  Translated  from  the 
Latin  it  runs  as  follows :  "  Inasmuch  as  he  de- 
sired that  there  should  be  some  unique  memorial 
of  his  most  sweet,  most  dear,  and  most  close  com- 
panion, than  whom  our  age  hath  seen  none  better, 
none  more  learned,  none  more  graceful,  none 
more  absolutely  perfect,  Michel  de  Montaigne, 
unhappily  bereft  of  so  beloved  a  guardian  of  his 
life,  mindful  of  their  mutual  affection  and  of  the 
kindly  feeling  which  united  them,  hath  set  up, 
since  nought  more  expressive  could  be  found,  this 
learned  shelf,  a  special  apparatus  of  the  mind,  in 
which  is  his  delight." 

The  books  of  Montaigne's  library  w^ere  only  in 
part  the  gift  of  La  Boetie.     They  numbered  in 
all    about    a    thousand,    a    collection    which,    he 
157 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

thought,  might  compare  well  with  other  "  village 
libraries".  But  he  wished  to  associate  with  all 
these  intellectual  treasures  the  memory  of  the  man 
whom  he  loved  best  among  men.  While  his 
understanding  sought  after  a  prudent  restraint, 
his  affections,  in  one  direction  at  least,  could  not 
be  satisfied  without  an  expansion  which  led  them, 
to  use  his  own  phrase,  to  go  beyond  themselves. 

The  life  of  Montaigne  in  his  chateau  is  not  to 
be  imagined  as  that  of  a  solitary.  No  one  ever 
was  more  naturally  sociable.  The  Essays  are  not 
a  confession  merely,  which  might  be  the  ostenta- 
tious self-exposure  of  an  egoist,  whose  sanity  had 
been  disturbed.  Here  the  confession  is  a  con- 
versation, which  has  to  be  genial,  and  full  of  good 
temper  and  good  sense  even  in  its  garrulity,  for 
otherwise  it  will  not  be  attended  to,  when  the 
tone  is  not  that  of  a  rhetorician,  but  the  unem- 
phatic  tone  of  a  speaker  in  his  easy  chair.  Mon- 
taigne was  never  a  solitary ;  yet  he  had  fled  from 
the  press  to  dwell  with  soothfastness,  he  had 
renounced  public  employments  and  the  ambitions 
of  the  Court.  In  the  essay  on  Solitude  we  can, 
as  it  were,  overhear  him,  while  he  meditates  and 
discourses  on  the  life  in  the  law-courts  at  Bor- 
deaux, or  in  the  reception-rooms  of  the  Louvre, 
and  that  other  life  in  the  fields  and  woods  around 
the  chateau,  or  in  the  seclusion  of  the  tower.  He 
will  not  consider  the  old  question  of  the  compara- 
158 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

tive  excellence  of  action  as  compared  with  con- 
templation. The  life  of  retired  contemplation  may 
really  be  more  social  than  many  lives  of  noise  and 
bustle.  Ambitious  men  may  profess  that  they 
have  devoted  themselves  to  the  service  of  the  pub- 
lic; but,  in  truth,  what  passion  isolates  its  votary 
or  its  victims  more  than  ambition?  To  live  well 
is  possible  even  in  a  crowd ;  but  in  a  crowd  much 
evil  is  ever  present,  and  the  danger  of  contagion 
is  great.  "A  man  must  either  imitate  the  vicious, 
or  hate  them",  and  either  alternative  is  unfor- 
tunate. The  sociable  nature  of  man  is  either 
checked  and  thwarted,  or  it  is  corrupted  by  vice — 
by  vice  which  in  its  very  nature  is  unsocial.  True 
solitude,  however,  is  not  to  be  found  by  mere 
withdrawal  from  the  crowd;  all  the  evils  of  the 
crowd — ambition,  avarice,  irresolution,  fear,  in- 
ordinate desires — may  pursue  us  into  a  private 
life,  even  into  the  government  of  a  family  or  an 
estate.  To  find  his  genuine  self,  and  to  dwell  with 
it,  a  man  must  sequester  his  spirit  from  the  "  pop- 
ular conditions"  that  exist  in  the  heart  itself.  Our 
disease  lies  in  the  mind,  and  the  true  solitude, 
which  can  be  enjoyed  in  cities  and  in  courts, 
though  not  so  commodiously  as  apart,  is  attained 
only  when  the  soul  enters  into  real  possession  of 
itself.  A  wife,  children,  worldly  goods,  and,  more 
than  all  else,  health,  are  precious  gains  of  exist- 
ence ;  but  our  happiness  must  not  depend  on  these. 
159 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

We  must  reserve  a  back-shop — ''unc  arricre 
boutique'' — wholly  our  own,  wholly  free,  wherein 
to  maintain  our  true  liberty  and  possess  our  im- 
pregnable retreat.  Do  we  need  company  in  our 
back-shop?  Well,  we  have  a  mind,  moving  and 
turning  on  itself — "'unc  aiiic  contournablc  en  soy 
mesnie^' — which  can  both  attack  and  defend 
which  can  both  give  and  take. 

Such  solitude  as  this  comes  fittest  after  a  man 
has  employed  his  best  years  in  the  service  of 
others.  Then  arrives  the  time  when  he  may  live, 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  for  himself.  Let 
him  make  ready  for  departure,  and  truss  his  bag- 
gage. Love  this  or  that  he  may ;  but  let  him  enter 
into  espousals  only  with  his  own  soul :  "  The 
greatest  thing  in  the  world  is  for  a  man  to  know 
how  to  be  his  own."  And  as  old  age  advances, 
and  he  becomes  less  useful  and  less  pleasing  to 
others,  let  him  see  to  it  that  he  becomes  more 
pleasing  to  himself :  "  let  him  flatter  and  caress 
himself,  and,  above  all,  let  him  rule  himself  aright, 
reverencing  and  fearing  his  reason  and  his  con- 
science." To  practice  severity  against  a  man's 
self,  to  lie  hard,  to  pluck  out  our  eyes,  to  fling  our 
wealth  into  the  river,  to  seek  for  pain  and  smart — 
all  this  ascetic  practice  belongs  to  "  an  excessive 
virtue".  Montaigne  will  have  none  of  this.  It  is 
enough  for  him  to  prepare  his  mind  for  pos- 
sible future  adversity,  and  meantime,  in  his 
i6o 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

present  condition,  to  pray  God  for  a  contented 
spirit. 

The  employments  suitable  to  the  solitary  life 
are  such  as  bring  with  them  neither  pain  nor 
weariness.  The  care  of  a  house  and  lands  was 
found  by  Montaigne,  upon  trial  of  it,  to  be  vexa- 
tious; but  a  mean,  he  thinks,  can  be  discovered 
between  sordid  absorption  in  such  business  and 
entire  neglect.  Nor  would  he  employ  his  leisure 
in  the  pursuit  of  literary  fame;  this  is  to  quit  the 
world  in  order  to  return  to  it  in  a  roundabout 
fashion,  or  to  step  back  in  order  to  gain  the  im- 
petus for  a  forward  leap.  The  religious  solitary 
is  far  more  reasonable  in  his  aims.  Of  his  wisdom 
and  his  joy  Montaigne  speaks  not  in  the  phrases 
of  official  pietism,  but  with  an  ardour  which,  if 
only  that  of  a  mobile  imagination,  is  yet  genuine 
in  its  kind,  and  remarkable  in  its  degree.  The 
object  of  the  solitary  in  religion  is  God,  an  object 
infinite  in  goodness  and  power;  the  soul,  enjoy- 
ing entire  liberty,  finds  that  which  can  satisfy  all 
its  desires;  afflictions  and  griefs  are  turned  to 
gains.  For  the  expectation  of  an  eternal,  blessed 
life  our  transitory  pleasures  may  be  well  aban- 
doned :  "  He  who  can  really  and  constantly  in- 
flame his  soul  with  the  glow  of  this  living  faith 
and  hope  creates  for  himself  in  solitude  a 
voluptuous  and  delicious  life  beyond  what  is 
proper  to  any  other  kind  of  existence." 
II  i6i 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

The  student  in  his  citadel  has  no  such  rapture 
as  this.  There  is  indeed  a  voluptuousness  in 
study,  but  it  may  be  one  of  those  treacherous 
pleasures  which  at  first  fawn  upon  us  in  order 
that  they  may  strangle  us  in  the  end.  Our  health, 
our  gaiety  are  more  to  us  than  books  can  ever  be, 
and  what  if  books  rob  us  of  these  best  posses- 
sions? For  his  own  part  Montaigne  cares  only 
for  two  kinds  of  books — those  that  being  pleasant 
and  easy  can  tickle  his  fancy,  and  those,  secondly, 
which  console  him,  and  counsel  him  how  to  regu- 
late his  life  and  death.  He  is  not  wise  or  strong 
enough  to  fashion  for  himself  a  purely  spiritual 
repose;  if  advancing  years  deprive  him  of  some 
chosen  pleasures,  he  educates  and  whets  his  appe- 
tite for  such  pleasures  as  remain — "  we  must 
tooth  and  nail  strive  to  retain  the  use  of  the  pleas- 
ures of  life,  which  the  years  snatch  from  us  one 
after  another."  If  this  is  Epicurean  philosophy, 
at  least  it  must  be  interpreted  by  words  which 
follow :  "  Retire  into  yourself,  but  first  prepare 
yourself  to  be  your  own  host;  it  were  folly  to 
trust  yourself  into  your  own  hands  if  you  have  not 
attained  to  self-government."  Yes,  and  more 
than  self-government,  for  Montaigne's  soul  had  a 
peculiar  delicacy  of  its  own — your  attainment 
must  include  a  certain  bashfulness  and  self-respect 
in  your  own  solitary  presence.  Then,  indeed,  you 
may  bid  the  world  good-bye,  may  forget  the  fame 
162 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

that  lies  in  broad  rumour,  and  follow  the  example 
of  those  wild  beasts  that  efface  the  track  at  the 
entrance  to  their  den. 

In  all  this  Montaigne  is  not  a  mere  historian  or 
memoir-writer  recording-  the  spiritual  adventures 
of  the  interior  of  his  tower.  The  memoir-waiter 
he  is  in  part,  but  he  is  also  a  good  deal  of  the 
artist.  He  describes  something  more  than  a 
mood ;  he  indicates  a  real  tendency  of  his  nature ; 
but  at  the  same  time  he  constructs  an  ideal  upon 
the  basis  of  this  genuine  tendency,  and  constructs 
it  partly  from  external  material  found  in  ancient 
writers  of  the  Stoic  school.  In  the  population  of 
moods  which  made  up  his  mind  were  many  others 
different  from  that  which  supplied  a  foundation — 
a  substantial,  not  an  imaginary,  foundation — for 
this  particular  ideal. 

In  considering  Montaigne,  the  lover  of  solitude 
and  retirement,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  as  a 
councillor  of  the  Parliament  of  Bordeaux  he  had 
already  during  many  years  lent  himself,  if  he  did 
not  ever  give  himself,  to  the  public  service;  that 
he  found  himself  ill-fitted  for  such  duties;  that 
afterwards,  when  age  was  growing  upon  him,  and 
his  health  was  seriously  impaired,  he  came  forth 
from  his  seclusion — which  was  never  wholly 
seclusion — to  preside  during  four  years  as  mayor 
over  the  affairs  of  the  city ;  and  that  all  this  time 
there  lay  within  him  powers  which  he  employed 
163 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

in  a  better  service  than  that  of  magistrate  or 
mayor,  and  not  for  his  own  time  only  but  also  for 
succeeding  generations.  Nor  should  we  forget 
what  a  time  for  France  that  was,  in  which  he 
withdrew  from  the  strife,  and  endeavoured  to 
obtain  the  leisure  to  be  wise.  He  was  in  truth  a 
great  artist,  and  a  great  artist,  except  in  very  ex- 
ceptional crises  of  events,  can  serve  the  world 
most  effectively  in  his  atelier.  The  library  and 
the  cabinet  of  the  tower  formed  the  studio  in 
which  Montaigne  drew  a  most  ingenious  series  of 
studies  in  humanity,  and  painted  that  portrait  of 
himself  which  still  fascinates  us  by  its  mysterious 
resemblance  in  feature  and  expression  to  each  of 
ourselves,  for  in  painting  his  own  likeness  he  rep- 
resented the  species  in  the  individual.  Outside  the 
tower  not  only  the  storms  of  winter  but  the  fiercer 
storms  of  civil  war  might  ramp  and  rage.  He 
could  not  wholly  escape  their  stress;  but  it  was 
wholly  beyond  his  power  to  rule  the  storm.  Could 
he  rule  his  own  soul?  Not  even  that  perfectly. 
Could  he,  in  an  age  of  cruelty  and  falsehood,  find 
a  habitation  for  temperance  and  truth  ?  Could  he 
inform  men  as  to  where  their  real  interests,  their 
true  happiness,  lay?  Could  he  by  a  little  abate 
the  pride,  the  violent  passions,  the  dangerous  fol- 
lies of  men?  Could  he  bid  the  eager  reformer 
pause,  and  first  reform  himself  before  he  ventured 
to  pull  to  pieces  the  mysterious  contexture  of  so- 

164 


MONTAIGNE    IN    THE    TOWER 

ciety?  Could  he  tell  the  remorseless  dogmatist 
that  there  is  more  of  true  wisdom  in  the  question- 
ing spirit  than  in  his  ?  Could  he  persuade  men  to 
return  upon  themselves  before  they  launched  forth 
in  the  exercise  of  sword  and  fire?  Could  he  say  a 
word  that  might  make  for  reasonableness,  and  say 
this  with  amiable  insinuation,  genially,  humor- 
ously? Montaigne  in  his  study  did  not  put  all 
these  questions  to  himself.  He  had  no  ambitious 
programme,  no  high  design  of  serving  the  world. 
But  in  effect  his  seclusion  was  proved  to  be  the 
essential  condition  for  accomplishing  his  best 
work ;  and,  if  any  justification  be  needed,  this  con- 
stitutes its  justification. 


165 


CHAPTER    VI 

MONTAIGNE  AMONG  HIS  BOOKS 

With  his  own  thoughts  and  the  vokimes 
ranged  on  his  shelves  Montaigne  in  his  tower  was 
provided  with  admirable  company.  From  the 
Essays,  with  their  penetrating  comments  on  an- 
cient and  modern  authors,  and  their  innumerable 
quotations,  multiplying  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  text,  we  can  in  a  considerable  measure 
reconstitute  his  library  of  a  thousand  books.  The 
collection  after  his  death  remained  for  a  time  in 
possession  of  his  daughter.  In  her  will,  of  the 
year  1615,  she  left  her  father's  books  to  the  grand 
vicar  of  the  diocese  of  Auch,  Gaudefroy  de  Roche- 
fort,  giving  him  permission  to  dispose  of  them  as 
he  pleased.  They  had  the  usual  fortune  of  such 
collections,  which  for  a  few  years  have  been  the 
cherished  toys  or  tools  of  the  collector — they  were 
scattered,  and  disappeared  from  sight.  For- 
tunately it  was  Montaigne's  custom  to  write  his 
name  upon  the  title-page  of  each  book.  In  some 
instances  he  annotated  the  margins,  or  added  in 
his  autograph  at  the  end  a  brief  estimate  of  the 
work  and  its  author.  By  the  diligence  of  those 
who  love  such  treasures  no  fewer  than  seventy- 
166 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

six  precious  waifs  and  strays  from  the  dispersed 
library  of  Montaigne,  or  volumes  which  had  been 
once  in  his  hands,  have  been  recovered.  Thus,  on 
the  quays  of  Paris  one  happy  explorer  lighted 
upon  the  copy  of  Plantin's  edition  of  Caesar's 
Commentaries,  which  Montaigne  began  to  read, 
as  a  note  records,  in  February,  1578,  and  finished 
in  July  of  the  same  year.  More  than  six  hundred 
notes  in  his  handwriting  appear  on  the  margins; 
at  the  end  is  his  appraisal  of  C?esar,  which  fur- 
nishes interesting  matter  of  comparison  with  the 
later  judgment  pronounced  in  the  Essays.  M. 
Parison,  the  lucky  bibliophile,  cannot  be  censured 
for  imprudence  in  his  expenditure  of  ninety  cen- 
times upon  the  acquisition  of  this  volume. 

M.  Bonnefon,  in  an  article  in  the  Reviezv  of  the 
Literary  History  of  France  (15  July,  1895),  has 
described  each  of  these  seventy-six  waifs  and 
strays,  and  has  endeavoured  to  ascertain  the  local 
habitation  of  each.  Both  in  that  article  and  in  his 
Montaigne  and  his  Friends,  he  has  considered  the 
indications  which  they  afford  respecting  Mon- 
taigne's tastes  as  a  reader  and  a  lover  of  literature. 
Little  more  can  here  be  attempted  than  to  bring 
within  a  narrow  compass  what  he  has  set  forth  at 
large.  Some  of  the  books  which  have  been  recov- 
ered may  have  formed  part  of  the  legacy  of  La 
Boetie,  but  no  decisive  evidence  that  it  once  be- 
longed to  Montaigne's  dead  friend  has  been  found 
167 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

in  any  one  of  them.  It  may  be  assumed  that  they 
were  in  the  main  acquired  by  Montaigne  himself, 
and  so  considerable  a  fraction  of  the  whole  col- 
lection may  fairly  be  regarded  as  representative. 

Latin,  we  must  remember,  was  Montaigne's 
mother  tongue.  His  first  enthusiasm  for  litera- 
ture was  awakened  by  the  luxuriant  beauty  of  the 
poetry  of  Ovid.  Virgil  and  Terence  delighted 
him  not  only  in  his  elder  but  in  his  youthful  years. 
It  is  true  that  at  a  comparatively  early  age  he 
ceased  to  speak  Latin,  and  did  not  often  use  it  in 
writing;  but  if  any  shock  of  joy  or  pain  surprised 
him — as  when  his  father  once  tottered  against 
him  in  a  swoon — it  was  a  Latin  exclamation  that 
instinctively  would  rise  to  his  lips.  We  should 
expect  to  find  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  books 
which  constantly  nourished  his  mind,  more  often 
dipped  into  than  continuously  studied,  were  in  the 
language  which  alone  he  had  spoken  as  a  child. 
Such  is  actually  the  case  with  the  group  which 
now  represents  the  collection  on  which  the  posses- 
sor's eyes  fell  as  he  looked  up  from  his  chair  at 
the  rows  of  books  upon  his  walls.  Thirty-five  of 
the  seventy-six  volumes  are  in  the  Latin  lan- 
guage. Of  these  the  larger  number  are  by  mod- 
ern writers,  but  Caesar,  Suetonius,  Quintus  Cur- 
tius,  Terence,  and  Virgil  appear  in  the  list.  Like 
the  copy  of  Caesar,  that  of  Quintus  Curtius  is 
annotated  in  Montaigne's  handwriting,  and  has  a 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

final  note  by  way  of  general  estimate  or  comment, 
to  which  is  affixed  the  date,  "July  3rd,  1587", 

The  Greek  books  are  only  nine  in  number.  A 
copy  of  Homer's  Odyssey  of  the  year  1525,  once 
the  property  of  Mirabeau  the  elder,  sold  in  Paris 
in  1792,  was  alleged  to  have  belonged  to  Mon- 
taigne, and  to  exhibit  marginal  notes  in  his  hand- 
writing. It  has  disappeared  from  view,  and  the 
description  in  the  sale-catalogue  cannot  now  be 
verified.  Among  the  volumes  in  Greek,  setting 
aside  a  folio  Bible  printed  at  Bale  in  the  year 
1545,  that  of  greatest  interest  is  a  copy  of 
Froben's  edition  (1560)  of  Plutarch's  Lives;  but 
the  name  of  Montaigne,  written  upon  one  of  its 
leaves,  does  not  seem  to  be  in  his  own  handwrit- 
ing. On  the  back  of  the  title-page  is  found  a 
manuscript  list  of  authors,  which  has  a  better 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  an  autograph ;  perhaps 
they  were  authors  whom  he  had  read  or  hoped  to 
read.  But,  in  truth,  Montaigne  did  not  become 
familiar  with  Plutarch  in  the  original.  Unlike 
his  greatest  English  contemporary,  he  had  much 
Latin ;  but,  like  Shakespeare,  he  had  certainly  less 
Greek.  It  was  through  a  translation,  itself  a  work 
of  original  genius  in  its  mastery  of  the  spirit  of 
the  French  language,  the  translation  of  Jacques 
Amyot,  that  Montaigne  entered  into  intimate  com- 
panionship with  his  favourite  author.  With  Amyot 
he  was  personally  acquainted;  from  his  lips  he 
169 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

heard  the  story,  told  in  one  of  the  essays,  of  the 
magnanimous  conduct  of  the  Duke  of  Guise 
towards  a  gentleman  who  had  joined  in  a  con- 
spiracy against  his  life,  and  whose  treachery, 
having  been  discovered,  was  anticipated  with  an 
indignant  mercy.  Montaigne  gave  Amyot  the 
palm  above  all  French  writers  of  his  time  for  the 
naivete  and  purity  of  his  style,  for  that  literary 
virtue  of  constancy  which  enables  an  author  to 
accomplish  a  labour  of  great  length,  and  especially 
for  having  had  the  discretion  to  choose  so  worthy 
and  so  suitable  a  gift  for  his  country  as  the  works 
of  Plutarch.  "  Let  people  tell  me  what  they  will," 
writes  Montaigne,  depreciating  his  own  attain- 
ments in  a  way  which  commended  them,  "  I 
understand  nothing  of  Greek.  .  .  .  We  ignorant 
fellows  were  lost,  had  not  this  book  raised  us  out 
of  the  mire;  thanks  to  him,  we  dare  now  speak 
and  write;  the  ladies,  with  his  aid,  can  instruct 
learned  professors ;  it  is  our  breviary."  *  The 
essay  goes  on  to  direct  Amyot's  attention  to 
Xenophon,  as  an  author  suitable  to  a  translator 
whose  years  of  greatest  vigour  were  already  past. 
In  the  spring  of  1581,  when  Montaigne  was  in 
Rome,  he  dined  with  the  French  ambassador,  and 
found,  among  other  learned  men  who  were  of  the 
company,  his  old  instructor  of  early  days  in  Bor- 

*  Essays,  II,  4. 
170 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

deaux,  the  distinguished  scholar  Muret.  Some- 
what rashly  Montaigne  alleged  on  behalf  of  his 
favourite  Amyot  that,  in  passages  where  he  may 
have  missed  the  precise  sense  of  his  original,  he 
yet  gave  a  good  approximate  meaning,  which 
went  well  with  what  preceded  and  followed  in 
the  text.  His  scholarly  acquaintances  at  once 
brought  the  rash  eulogist  to  book,  and  confronted 
him  with  two  passages  where  the  imperfect  schol- 
arship of  Amyot  had  evidently  led  him  far  astray. 
Montaigne  could  not  question  their  authority ;  he 
professed  himself  entirely  of  their  opinion,  and 
was  much  too  courteous  to  beg  any  of  the  learned 
critics  to  peruse  his  own  essay  on  Pedantry. 

Of  modern  authors  in  other  languages  than 
Latin,  whose  works  appear  among  the  remaining 
volumes  of  Montaigne's  library,  by  far  the  larger 
number,  as  might  be  expected,  are  French.  Two 
are  Spanish.  One  of  the  volumes  is  a  portion  of 
the  history  of  Portuguese  conquests  in  the  East 
by  a  writer  who  is  known  as  a  laborious  and  con- 
scientious investigator,  Lopez  de  Castanheda. 
Readers  of  the  essay  on  Coaches  and  that  on  Can- 
nibals are  aware  that  Montaigne  was  painfully 
and  indignantly  interested  in  the  relations  of  so- 
called  civilised  nations  to  the  nations  styled,  some- 
what hastily  as  he  held,  savage.  The  other  vol- 
ume gives  in  a  rare  edition  the  last  book  of  the 
romance  of  Amadis  of  Gaul,  which  may  have 
171 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

found  its  way  to  the  tower  through  some  idle 
curiosity  of  its  occupant,  desirous  perhaps  to  ex- 
periment on  his  mature  taste  with  extravagances 
of  fancy,  which  even  when  he  was  a  boy  had  no 
attraction  for  him.  A  second  Spanish  romance  of 
chivalry,  the  Cared  de  Amor  of  Diego  de  Sant 
Pedro,  appears  also  in  the  list,  but  in  an  Italian 
translation.  The  Italian  books,  which  number 
thirteen,  are  in  part  historical,  the  chronicles  of 
Villani,  the  history  of  his  own  times  by  Lionardo 
Aretino,  and  others.  Certain  of  the  volumes  were 
probably  procured  by  Montaigne  either  in  antici- 
pation of  his  journey  to  Italy,  or  while  he  was 
upon  his  travels.  One  might  have  served  as  a 
guide-book  to  the  antiquities  of  Rome ;  one  dealt 
with  the  waters  of  Italy  and  their  medicinal  uses. 
Others  represent  those  numerous  Italian  treatises 
on  love — somewhat  too  sublimated  to  please  Mon- 
taigne in  certain  of  his  moods — which,  with  trea- 
tises on  beauty,  were  a  product  of  the  Renais- 
sance, when  Platonism  was  subtilised  and  even 
methodised.  A  copy  of  Petrarch,  of  small  size,  is 
interesting  because  it  contains  a  note  in  the  pos- 
sessor's handwriting  which  appears  in  two  other 
volumes,  as  if  the  writer  had  in  a  peculiar  sense 
adopted  it  as  his  own:  "Mentre  si  _puo"s:—"gCr 
cording  to  what  a  man  can".  "  My  God!"  ex- 
claims Montaigne  in  one  of  the  essays,  "  how  good 
an  office  does  wisdom  to  those  whose  desires  it 
172 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

limits  to  their  power!  There  is  no  more  useful 
knowledge ;  '  according  to  what  a  man  can'  was 
the  refrain  and  favourite  word  of  Socrates,  a  word 
of  mighty  substance."  Two  of  the  books  are  by 
an  illustrious  theological  revolter  of  Italy,  Bernar- 
dino Ochino  of  Siena,  in  one  of  which  Montaigne 
wrote  the  words  ''Liber  prohihitiis'' ;  but  this  pro- 
hibited book,  as  an  inscription  on  the  same  page 
informs  us,  was  chosen  as  a  gift  for  Montaigne's 
disciple,  Pierre  Charron,  when  he  was  a  visitor  at 
the  chateau  on  July  2,  1586. 

In  earlier  days  Montaigne  had  cared  much  for 
Ariosto,  but  as  age  grew  upon  him  the  fantasies 
of  Ariosto  had  no  longer  power  to  tickle  his  "  old 
heavy  soul".  He  was  indignant  with  the  "  bar- 
baresque  stupidity"  of  those  who  dared  to  com- 
pare Ariosto  with  Virgil.  The  class  of  books 
written  in  Italian  which  had  a  special  attraction 
for  Montaigne  was  that  considerable  one  formed 
by  the  works  of  the  letter-writers.  His  friends 
were  of  opinion,  he  says,  that  he  could  himself 
"  do  something"  in  this  kind.  He  confesses  that 
he  would  have  preferred  to  throw  his  meditations 
into  the  form  of  letters  rather  than  that  of  essays ; 
but,  since  La  Boetie's  death,  he  had  no  friend  with 
whom  he  cared  to  correspond,  no  friend  who 
could  excite  and  sustain  his  thoughts.  To  forge 
vain  names  of  imaginary  correspondents,  and  thus 
"  traffic  with  the  wind  as  others  do",  he  could  not ; 
^73 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

to  do  this  would  be  to  live  in  dreamland.  "  I 
think  I  have,"  he  says,  "  a  hundred  different  vol- 
umes of  such  letters ;  those  of  Annibale  Caro  seem 
to  me  the  best."  Such  letters,  sometimes  spoilt  by 
being  tricked  out  too  artificially,  were,  in  fact, 
often  miniature  essays,  dealing  with  a  central 
theme,  yet  straying  from  it  with  an  air  of  disen- 
gagement. They  were  not  of  excessive  length, 
and  Montaigne,  whose  eyesight  was  quickly 
fatigued  by  the  printed  characters  of  a  page,  even 
when  dulled  by  a  superimposed  sheet  of  glass  pre- 
pared for  the  purpose,  enjoyed  a  book  which  he 
could  drop  or  lay  aside.  Had  the  letters  been 
preserved  which  he  had  formerly  scribbled  to 
ladies — for  he  loves  to  think  of  these  passions  of 
his  youth — they  might  perchance  be  found  to  con- 
tain a  page  or  two  worth  communicating  to  youth- 
ful lovers.  Nowadays  if  he  writes  a  letter  it  is 
always  in  post-haste;  the  handwriting  is  infa- 
mous, yet  he  has  no  patience  to  delay  like  a 
leisurely  scribe :  "I  have  accustomed  the  great 
.  folk  who  know  me  to  bear  with  my  scrapings  and 
cancels,  and  my  paper  without  fold  or  margin. 
Those  letters  that  cost  me  most  pains  are  v^^orth 
the  least;  when  I  once  begin  to  labour  them,  'tis  a 
sign  I  am  not  there;  I  start  content  with  having 
no  design ;  the  first  word  begets  the  second."  To 
write  such  a  letter  was  easy  for  Montaigne;  but 
to  fold  it  correctly  was  not  to  be  compassed  by  his 

174 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

clumsy    fingers.      That    operation    was    always 
assigned  to  some  one  else. 

Of  the  seventeen  books  written  in  French 
which  survive  from  the  library,  incomparably  the 
most  important  and  precious  is  the  copy  of  the 
1588  edition  of  Montaigne's  own  Essays,  now  in 
the  public  library  of  Bordeaux,  on  which  he  in- 
scribed those  frequent  corrections  and  additions 
embodied  by  its  editors  in  the  posthumous  text 
of  1595.  Of  this  a  little  more  must  be  told  in  a 
later  chapter.  The  other  volumes  are  for  the 
greater  part  historical,  but  the  poems  of  Baif 
appear  in  an  edition  (1573)  which  includes  six 
sonnets  of  La  Boetie,  differing  in  various  read- 
ings from  the  same  sonnets  as  given  by  Mon- 
taigne. Here  also  is  a  copy  of  Sebastian  Mun- 
ster's  Cosmography,  a  book  which  Montaigne 
regretted  that  he  had  not  brought  with  him  to 
Germany  and  Italy.  He  seems  on  his  return  to 
have  consulted  it  in  the  light  of  his  travels,  for 
many  passages  which  have  reference  to  Italian 
cities  visited  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings  are 
underlined  by  his  pen.  One  other  of  these  vol- 
umes in  French  deserves  special  mention — Mon- 
taigne's copy  of  the  Annals  and  Chronicles  of 
France  (1562),  by  Master  Nicolle  Gilles,  not 
quite  perfect,  but  enriched  with  over  one  hundred 
and  seventy  of  the  Essayist's  annotations  and 
underlinings. 

175 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Another  principle  of  classification  beside  that 
of  the  several  languages  in  which  they  were  writ- 
ten is  applied  by  M.  Bonnefon  to  the  extant  relics 
of  Montaigne's  library — a  classification  according 
to  subjects.  Including  the  Bible,  and  two  pieces 
of  heterodox  theology,  the  books  which  can  be 
classed  under  divinity  are  only  five.  Law  and 
medicine  may  each  claim  two  volumes.  The  ex- 
magistrate  had  not  perhaps  retained  his  law 
library,  if  he  ever  possessed  one  worthy  of  con- 
sideration; that  of  La  Boetie  did  not  form  part 
of  his  legacy  to  Montaigne.  As  to  physic,  Mon- 
taigne, though  he  would  consult  a  doctor  in  his 
need,  was,  like  his  father,  profoundly  sceptical. 
He  supposed — and  the  thought  was  a  bitter  one 
— that  La  Boetie  might  have  recovered,  if  only 
the  physician  had  not  been  by  his  bedside.  Poetry 
is  far  less  inadequately  represented.  The  Greek 
Anthology,  Terence,  Virgil,  Ausonius,  Petrarch, 
Beze,  Baif,  with  perhaps  the  Homer  which  for 
the  present  has  vanished  from  men's  eyes,  are 
enough  to  prove  (if  proof  were  needed,  when 
every  page  of  the  Essays  displays  its  poetical  cita- 
tions) that  Montaigne  did  not  disregard  this 
province  of  a  well-equipped  library.  Homer, 
"Jhe  first  and  last  of  poets",  he  placed  in 
his  trinity  of  the  most  excellent  men  that  the 
I  world  has  seen.  The  other  two,  Alexander  and 
I  Epaminondas,  are  assigned  this  pre-eminence  on 

176 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

grounds  unconnected  with  literature.  But  Mon- 
taigne did  not  consider  himself  a  competent  judge 
of  the  art  of  Homer;  he  grasped  at  the  glorious 
substance  of  the  Homeric  poetry,  but  was  unable 
to  taste  and  dwell  upon  its  style  with  that  fine 
sense  which  enjoyed,  as  the  tongue  enjoys  some 
exquisite  fruit,  the  savour  and  flavour  of  Virgil's 
verse.  The  Gcorgics  seemed  to  him  the  most  t 
accomplished  work  in  the  whole  range  of  poetry,  i 
Of  the  JEneid  he  considered  the  Fifth  Book  the 
most  admirable.  Lucan  he  loved,  not  so  much 
for  his  style  as  for  a  certain  personal  worth  which 
he  recognised  through  the  poetry,  and  for  the 
truth  of  his  judgments  and  opinions.  Horace 
and  Catullus  he  placed  in  the  first  rank  of  lyrical 
writers.  Among  dramatists  he  assigned  the 
highest  position  to  Terence,  '7^  bon  Terence'', 
whose  delicate  mastery  of  the  graces  of  language 
was  felt  by  Montaigne  as  a  merit  hardly  inferior 
to  the  fidelity  and  animation  with  which  he  rep- 
resents the  various  movements  of  the  soul  and 
depicts  the  manners  of  society.  With  fine  literary 
discrimination  Montaigne  observed  that  the  con- 
temporary writers  of  comedy  piled  together  in- 
cidents, intertangling  three  or  four  arguments 
from  Terence  or  Plautus  to  make  one  of  their 
own,  or  heaping  five  or  six  tales  of  Boccaccio  on 
the  top  one  of  another,  because  they  could  not 
rely  upon  the  interest  of  their  art  as  such; 
12  177 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

whereas  with  Terence  "  the  perfection  and  beauty 
of  his  way  of  speaking  make  us  lose  our  appe- 
tite for  his  plot;  his  grace  and  elegance  hold  us 
throughout."  Montaigne  extended  this  remark 
by  adding  that  the  ancient  poets,  unlike  the  mod- 
erns, avoided  affectations,  and  not  only  those  fan- 
tastic Spanish  and  Petrarchan  exaltations  of 
modern  verse,  but  even  the  milder  and  less  aggres- 
sive "  points"  which  constitute  the  chief  orna- 
ments of  later  poetry. 

Without  any  system  of  literary  rules  or  doc- 
trine, which  he  would  leave  to  pedants,  Mon- 
taigne had  formed  his  literary  taste  upon  classical 
models,  and  his  judgments  are  given  with  al- 
most unerring  propriety,  like  that  of  a  genuine 
connoisseur  of  wines  when  he  pronounces  on  the 
vintages  of  famous  years.  Matthew  Arnold,  in 
a  well-known  preface,  insisted  on  the  contrast  be- 
tween classical  and  modern  poetry  precisely  in  the 
spirit  in  which  Montaigne  writes.  A  good  sen- 
tence or  a  thing  well  said,  Montaigne  admits,  is 
always  in  season.  But  no  coruscating  beauties  in 
a  work  of  art  can  compensate  for  a  central  de- 
ficiency in  the  design.  So  Menander,  when  they 
reproached  him,  as  the  day  drew  near  by  which 
one  of  his  comedies  was  promised,  that  he  had  not 
yet  put  his  hand  to  the  work,  replied,  "  It  is  com- 
posed and  ready,  I  have  only  to  add  the  verses." 
The  growth  of  Montaigne's  literary  feeling  may 
178 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

be  indicated  by  three  successive  names,  expressive 
of  three  successive  stages — Ovid,  Lucan,  Virgil ; 
or,  as  he  distinguishes  the  master  quahties  of 
these  poets,  first  he  yielded  himself  to  the  charm 
of  "  a  gay  and  ingenious  fluidity",  next,  to  the 
attractions  of  a  subtlety  which  is  elevating  and 
penetrating;  finally,  to  the  sense  of  "a  mature 
and  constant  force"  in  perfect  balance  with  grace. 
Yet  no  one  recognised  more  clearly  than  Mon- 
taigne that  there  is  something  irreducible  to  rule 
and  method,  something  incalculable  in  poetry, 
something  which  seems  to  be  the  unforeseen  gift 
of  a  fortunate  moment,  and  that  "  a  grain  of 
folly"  in  a  poet  may  be  a  grain  of  divinest  wis- 
dom :  "  The  true,  supreme,  and  divine  poesy  is 
above  all  rules  and  reason."  And  the  critic  him- 
self is  carried  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of  his  de- 
light :  "  Whoever  discerns  the  beauty  of  it  with 
an  assured  and  steady  sight  sees  in  truth  nothing 
of  it,  any  more  than  he  who  can  gaze  upon  the 
splendour  of  a  flash  of  lightning;  such  poetry 
does  not  exercise  our  judgment;  it  ravishes  and 
ravages  it.  .  .  .  From  my  earliest  childhood 
poetry  has  had  the  power  to  transpierce  and  trans- 
port me."  *  And  again  :  "  As  Cleanthes  has  de- 
scribed the  voice  constrained  within  the  narrow 
channel  of  a  trumpet,  and  so  coming  forth  with 

*  Essays,  I,  2^. 
179 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

more  piercing  power,  so  it  seems  to  me  that  a 
sentence,  compressed  within  the  harmonious 
hmits  of  poesy,  darts  forth  with  much  more  sud- 
den force,  and  strikes  me  with  a  hveher  impact."  * 
A  poet  whose  invention  does  not  enable  him 
to  attain  excellence  of  matter,  or  such  incalculable 
beauties  as  are  proper  to  genius  alone,  must  needs 
garnish  his  poverty  with  the  tags  and  ribbons 
of  ingenuity.  Montaigne,  after  his  manner,  ex- 
presses his  thought  by  vivid  imagery,  which  his 
Elizabethan  translator,  Florio,  has  transformed 
into  his  old  English  with  so  much  spirit  that  his 
words  are  perhaps  better  than  a  more  exact  trans- 
lation : 

"  Even  as  in  our  dances  those  base  conditioned  men  that 
keep  dancing-schools,  because  they  are  unfit  to  represent 
the  port  and  decencie  of  our  nobilitie,  endeavour  to  get 
commendation  by  dangerous  lofty  trickes,  and  other  strange 
tumbler-like  friskes  and  motions.  And  some  Ladies  make 
a  better  show  of  their  countenances  in  those  dances 
wherein  are  divers  changes,  cuttings,  turnings,  and  agita- 
tions of  body  than  in  some  dances  of  state  and  gravity, 
where  they  need  but  simply  to  tread  a  natural  measure, 
represent  an  unaffected  carriage,  and  their  ordinary  grace. 
And  as  I  have  also  seen  some  excellent  Lourdans  or 
Clownes,  attired  in  their  ordinary  worky-day  clothes,  and 
with  a  common  homely  countenance,  afford  us  all  the 
pleasure  that  may  be  had  from  their  art :  Prentises  and 
learners  that  are  not  of  so  high  a  forme,  to  besmeare  their 

*  Essays,  I,  25. 
180 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

faces,  to  disguise  themselves,  and  in  motions  to  counter- 
feit strange  viages,  and  antickes,  to  enduce  us  to  laughter."  * 

Montaigne  proceeds  to  contrast  Virgil's  Aineid 
with  Ariosto's  Orlando  Furioso;  the  former 
"  soaring  aloft  with  full-spread  wings,  and  with 
so  high  and  strong  a  pitch,  ever  following  his 
point" ;  the  latter  faintly  hovering  and  fluttering, 
skipping  from  bough  to  bough,  "  always  distrust- 
ing his  own  wings,  except  it  be  for  some  short 
flight,  and  for  fear  his  strength  and  breath  should 
fail  him,  to  sit  down  at  every  field's  end."  Such 
criticism  of  poetry  is  that  of  one  who  was  himself 
a  poet,  though  not  in  verse. 

Montaigne  was  not  so  illiberal  as  to  reserve  all 
his  admiration  for  the  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
He  had  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  the  accomplished 
Latin  versifiers  of  his  own  century;  Dorat, 
Buchanan,  Beze,  L'Hopital,  Mondore,  Turnebe 
are  named  with  special  honour.  He  hailed  the 
leaders  of  the  Pleiad  as  the  new  lights  of  French 
poetry.  He  supposed  that  Ronsard  and  Du  Bel- 
lay  could  never  be  surpassed,  and  in  their  best 
work  it  seemed  to  him  that  they  approached  even 
classical  perfection.  But  for  the  crowd  of 
rhymers,  who  had  caught  the  trick  of  phrasing 
and  the  turns  of  harmony  from  these  masters,  he 
had  no  toleration.    What  he  could  least  endure  in 

*  Essays,  II,  lo. 
i8i 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

poetry  was  mediocrity.  A  man  may  play  the  fool 
elsewhere,  he  thought,  but  not  in  poetry.  Yet 
there  is  a  kind  of  poetry  with  far  humbler  pre- 
tensions than  that  of  the  aspirants  who  never  at- 
tain mastery,  which  Montaigne  highly  esteemed. 
It  was  asserted  by  Ampere  that  Montaigne  was 
the  earliest  writer  to  employ  the  expression  " pocsie 
populairc" ;  perhaps  he  was  the  first  to  indicate 
the  folk-song  as  a  species  in  itself.  "  Popular  and 
purely  natural  poetry,"  he  says,  "  has  certain 
naiveties,  certain  graces  by  which  it  may  come 
into  comparison  with  the  greatest  beauty  of 
poetry  perfected  by  art;  as  we  see  in  the  vil- 
lanelles  of  Gascony,  and  in  the  songs  brought  to 
us  from  nations  that  have  no  acquaintance  with 
writing.  The  poetry  that  occupies  the  mean  be- 
tween these  two  is  despised,  of  no  honour  and  of 
no  value."  *  With  the  folk-song  of  Gascony  he 
Vk^ould  probably  have  classed  his  charming  "  Stay, 
adder,  stay"  of  the  savages. 

In  the  essay.  Upon  some  Verses  of  Virgil, 
which  was  first  published  in  1588,  a  passage  from 
Lucretius,  describing  the  amorous  delight  of  Mars 
is  quoted,  and  Montaigne  holds  upon  his  literary 
palate  verb  and  adjective  and  participle,  as  if  to 
draw  out  the  full  flavour  of  the  words.  "  This 
noble  circumfttsa",  this  pascit,  pendct,  percurrit — 

*  Essays,  I,  54. 
182 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

he  rolls  each  expression  as  a  sweet  morsel  under 
his  tongue.  In  comparison  with  this  almost  ma- 
terial realisation  of  things  in  words  he  despises 
the  little  points,  and  verbal  ingenuities,  and  allu- 
sive remoteness  from  reality,  which  have  made 
their  appearance  in  later  literature.  He  loves  this 
sinewy,  solid,  almost  carnal,  style,  which  does  not 
so  much  gratify  as  replenish  the  mind :  "  When 
I  see  these  brave  forms  of  expression,  so  living, 
so  profound,  I  do  not  say  *  This  is  well  said',  but 
'This  is  \vell  thought'."  Such  painting  is 
achieved  not  by  dexterity  of  touch,  but  by  having 
the  eye  possessed  by  the  object;  then  the  maga- 
zine of  words  is  forced  to  render  up  the  absolute 
expression — "  the  sense  lights  up  and  produces 
the  words,  not  now  words  of  air,  but  of  flesh  and 
bone."  There  is  then  no  need  to  seek  out  curi- 
osities of  diction,  to  follow  the  wretched  affecta- 
tion of  some  new  style.  The  old  familiar  words 
submit  themselves  to  more  vivid  and  intimate 
meanings.  They  may,  like  shrubs  or  flowers,  be 
transplanted,  and  thereby  grow  stronger ;  a  word 
of  the  chase  or  a  military  term  may  be  precisely 
the  needful  word  to  interpret  some  act  of  the 
mind,  some  passion  of  the  soul.  Our  vocabulary 
is  copious  enough,  but  it  might  be  more  pliable 
and  sinewy.  How  often  in  presence  of  a  powerful 
conception  it  seems  to  succumb,  and  when  it  flags 
and  languishes  we  turn  for  help  to  Latin  or,  it 
183 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

may  be,  to  Greek.  To  reanimate  language  by  in- 
tense observation,  by  vital  penetrating  perception, 
by  feelings  exact,  vivid,  and  profound — such  is 
the  true  process  of  an  original  style.  It  is,  indeed, 
as  if  Montaigne  were  giving  us  the  secret  of  his 
own  method,  so  marvellous  when  at  its  best  in 
producing  a  style  pregnant  with  imaginative  life, 
a  thing  of  abounding  vigour,  yet  so  easy,  so  in- 
sinuating !  Is  the  glove  which  his  hand  wears  of 
cheverel  or  of  steel? 

Dear  as  poetry  was  to  Montaigne,  he  loved  the 
best  writers  of  prose  hardly,  if  at  all,  less.     "  The 
best  ancient  prose,"  he  says,  "  shines  throughout 
with  a  poetic  vigour  and  boldness,  and  not  with- 
out some  air  of  its  fury."     Plato,  for  example,  is 
wholly  poetic;    the  old  theology,  as  the  learned 
assert,  is  all  poetry;   the  first  poetic  philosophy  is 
"  the  original  language  of  the  gods".     Some  of 
the  volumes  of  prose  which  he  had  beside  him 
were  read  merely  for  rest  and  recreation;    they 
were    simply    pleasant,    "  simplcment    plaisant", 
and  among  the  moderns  this  class  was  best  repre- 
sented by  The  Decameron  of  Boccaccio.     As  be- 
longing to  this  group  he  names  also  the  writings 
of  his  great  predecessor  in  the  literature  of  the 
i  French  Renaissance — Rabelais.    It  is  strange  that 
1  the  penetrating  vision  of  Montaigne  should  not 
1  have  discovered  the  exultant  earnestness  of  Rabe- 
'  lais's  shout  on  behalf  of  emancipation,  and  his 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

serious  enthusiasm  for  science.  But  the  full  sig- 
nificance of  recent  and  contemporary  writers  is 
often  veiled  for  a  time,  and  Rabelais  had  himself 
thrown  the  jester's  motley  over  his  warrior's  garb. 
Perhaps  the  minstrel  Taillefer,  as  he  charged  at 
the  battle  of  Senlac  with  his  song  and  his  jong- 
leur's trick,  was  regarded  by  the  horsemen  who 
followed  him  as  no  more  than  "simplcment  plais- 
ant'\  Montaigne,  indeed,  came  at  a  time  which 
seemed  to  belie  the  highest  hopes  of  Rabelais. 
While  Calvinist  and  Catholic  were  at  each  other's 
throats,  the  prophecy  of  Rabelais  sounded  like  a 
voice  carried  away  by  the  storm,  and  its  words 
were  not  intelligible.  Only  the  enormous  buffoon 
could  be  seen  gesticulating  and  tumbling  in  the 
mire. 

Whether  he  read  books  simply  pleasant  or  those 
which,  he  hoped,  might  lead  him  to  a  knowledge 
of  himself  and  instruct  him  how  to  live,  Mon- 
taigne was  accustomed  to  form  no  large  designs, 
but  rather  to  live  in  the  moment  and  to  make 
much  of  it.  Ideas  came  to  him  through  books, 
not  by  a  continuous  process  of  study,  but  by  sud- 
den rays  and  instantaneous  flashes.  If  he  met 
difficulties  in  his  reading,  he  "  did  not  bite  his 
nails".  After  a  charge  or  two  against  the  ob- 
stacle, he  left  it.  His  intellect  was  impatient  and 
swiftly  prehensile.  He  took  things  at  the  first 
bound  or  not  at  all.  And  so  in  his  own  body  of 
i8s 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

I  thought  he  did  not  construct  a  unity  or  even  a 

harmony ;  such  unity  as  there  is  grows  out  of  his 

temperament  and  character;   it  is  not  formal  but 

vital.     In  minor  matters  if  he  contradicts  himself 

I  — well,    he   contradicts   himself,    and   why   not? 

When  his  dealings  were  with  books  and  authors, 

he   desired   above   all   to  preserve   his   spirit   of 

gaiety ;  he  was  always  at  his  best  "  under  a  clear 

sky".     Continuance  and  contention,  even  with  a 

favourite  author,  dazzled,  dulled,  and  wearied  his 

judgment.     The  effect  was  like  that  of  scarlet  on 

the  eye,  when  gazed  at  obstinately  and  long.    "  If 

one  book  tires  me,"  he  writes,  "  I  take  another, 

and  yield  myself  to  it  only  in  those  hours  when 

the  tedium  of  doing  nothing  descends  upon  me. 

I  do  not  much  addict  myself  to  new  ones,  because 

the  old  seem  fuller  and  stronger;    nor  to  Greek 

books,  because  my  judgment  cannot  do  its  work 

aright,   where  my  intelligence  is   imperfect  like 

'   that  of  a  child  or  of  one  learning  his  trade." 

I       The  historians  and  the  moralists,  even  more 

!  than  the  poets,  were  the  special  "  game"  hunted 

by  Montaigne.    The  historians  were  regarded  by 

j  him  not  as  chroniclers,  telling  a  tale  of  little  mean- 

^   ing,  but  as  moralists  teaching  by  example,  and, 

in  a  wider  sense,  as  presenters  of  that  curious 

creature,  man,  while  they  set  forth  his  various 

[  customs,  manners,  laws,  complexions,  humours; 

man,  perpetually  changing  from  age  to  age,  every- 

i86 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

where  diverse  from  clime  to  clime,  yet  ever  and 
everywhere  the  same  marvellously  vain,  shifting, 
undulant  being.     Thirty-one  out  of  the  total  of 
seventy-six  books,  once  Montaigne's,  which  have 
been  recovered,  are  historical ;    not  far  from  half  | 
of  the  entire  number.     On  the  memorials  of  indi-  ,■ 
viduals  and  of  the  species  found  in  such  records  j 
as  these,  it  was  the  essay  or  trial  of  his  judgment 
that  Montaigne  especially  desired  to  make.     He 
did  not  care  merely  to   load  his  memory  with  [ 
facts;    his  memory  was  a  most  convenient  sieve,  | 
which  let  the  idle  rubbish  of  insignificant,   un-  ; 
illuminated   facts   escape.      He   would   not  be   a  | 
pedant,  who  makes  his  jewel  of  an  opaque  pebble.  | 
A  fact  v/as  of  value  to  him  as  the  means  of  attain-  •' 
ing  a   truth.      Whatever  threw   light   upon   any 
feature,  any  aspect  of  human  nature,  he  appro- 
priated   for    his    own    uses.      Such    "  game"    he 
bagged  in  that  serviceable  memory  of  his  safely 
enough;   and  often  an  anecdote  seemingly  trivial, 
but  significant  when  turned  around  and  seen  on 
the  right  side,  told  him  more  than  any  pompous 
setting- forth  of  public  events ;    for  these,  as  he 
would   say,   are  often  the   result  not  of  human 
character  or  human  resolve  but  of  that  incalcu- 
lable "  fortune"  which  determines  the  issues  of 
things.      Caring   for   anecdotes,   he  turned  with 
peculiar  interest  to  the  biographical  side  of  his- 
tory;  he  could  not  learn  enough  about  men  and 
187 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

the  lives  of  men  in  their  minutest  details :  "  Those 
who  write  Lives,  by  reason  that  they  concern 
themselves  more  with  counsels  than  events,  more 
with  what  proceeds  from  within  than  what  hap- 
pens without,  are  the  more  proper  for  my  reading, 
and  this  is  the  reason  why  Plutarch" — our  Plu- 
tarch, as  Montaigne  elsewhere  familiarly  calls  him 
— "  above  all  others  is  the  man  for  me."  He 
desired  to  study  action  in  relation  to  character, 
as  the  most  fruitful  form  of  study.  But  even  in 
the  case  of  men  of  thought  rather  than  of  action 
he  divined  that  there  might  be  some  occult  rela- 
tion between  abstract  dogma  and  personal  char- 
acteristics or  the  play  of  a  peculiar  environment. 
He  did  not  find  one  Diogenes  Laertius  sufficient 
with  his  Lives  of  the  Philosophers;  he  wished 
for  a  dozen ;  for  he  was  "  equally  curious  to 
be  acquainted  with  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  these 
great  instructors  of  the  world  and  with  the  diver- 
sity of  their  dogmas  and  conceits."  Diversity 
everywhere;  diversity  lying  within  the  bounds, 
so  narrow  yet  so  indeterminable,  of  humanity; 
and  the  chief  word  in  Montaigne's  logic  was  the 
word  Distinguo. 

The  historians  seemed  to  him  to  fall  into  three 
groups.  The  division  that  he  had  made  in  poetry 
— "  popular"  poetry  or  folk-song  on  the  one  hand, 
the  divine  masters  of  poetic  art  on  the  other,  and 
between  them  a  worthless  tribe  of  imitators  and 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

aspirants — was,  in  a  slightly  altered  form,  applic- 
able here.  There  were  first  the  "  simple"  his- 
torians, who  are  diligent  to  gather  concrete  facts 
and  to  record  them  with  entire  good  faith ;  they 
add  nothing  of  their  own,  but  they  provide 
genuine  matter  on  which  the  judgment  can  make 
its  essay.  Perhaps  Montaigne  did  not  quite  do 
justice  to  the  artistic  gift  of  honest  Froissart — 
*'  le  bon  Froissart'' — when  he  named  him  as  rep- 
resentative of  the  class.  Such  writers  give  us  the 
naked  and  inform  matter  of  history,  from  which, 
according  to  his  understanding,  every  one  may 
make  his  profit.  The  highest  order  of  historians 
select  what  is  essential  fact,  they  establish  true 
connections,  they  draw  just  inferences,  they  pro- 
nounce wise  judgments;  and  thus  they  regulate 
our  belief.  The  middle  sort — and  most  historians 
fall  within  this  class — are  those  who  spoil  every- 
thing they  touch ;  they  will  chew  our  meat  for  us ; 
they  wrest  facts  aside  according  to  their  own  bias ; 
select  what  is  impertinent,  omit  what  is  signifi- 
cant, because  they  have  not  wit  to  perceive  its  im- 
port; judge  without  judgment;  and  leave  us 
nothing  to  do,  for  we  have  got  nothing  rendered 
to  us  purely  and  in  good  faith.  Such  writers  are 
for  the  most  part  mere  men  of  letters,  whose  chief 
qualification  for  dealing  with  real  affairs  is  that 
they  can  string  sentences  together.  In  the  opinion 
of  Montaigne  the  only  good  histories  are  those 
189 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

written  by  persons  who  themselves  were  men  of 
j  action  and  of  authority,  and  whose  judgment  had 
j  been  made  ripe  by  experience  in  the  kind  of  affairs 
)  of  which  they  write. 

Through  such  authors  he  not  only  made  a  real 
acquaintance  with  the  subjects  handled  in  the 
masterful  way  of  the  masters;  he  also  entered 
into  that  intimacy  with  superior  minds  which  is 
j  the  happiest  part  of  study.  "  I  have  a  singular 
curiosity  to  know  the  soul  and  the  spontaneous 
I  judgments  of  my  authors."  The  form  thus  be- 
came almost  more  important  than  the  matter,  or 
rather  the  form  became  itself  a  more  important 
kind  of  matter — the  true  matter  for  his  examina- 
tion. How  things  shape  themselves  in  the  minds 
of  the  masters ;  how,  like  an  etcher  of  genius, 
they  select  the  essential,  the  dominant  lines ;  how 
they  take  things  up,  as  we  say,  by  the  right  handle ; 
how  they  distinguish  and  how  they  combine ;  upon 
what  hints  they  conjecture  or  infer;  upon  what 
grounds  they  draw  conclusions ;  what  kindles  their 
■  enthusiasm;  how  they  hold  the  balance  between 
intellect  and  emotions ;  what  temper  controls  their 
words  and  models  their  sentences — to  observe 
and  ponder  such  matters  as  these  is  to  receive  the 
best  lessons  and  the  substantial  delights  of  litera- 
ture. And  it  was  in  this  way  that  Montaigne 
hoped  that  his  own  writings  might  be  regarded 
by  a  thoughtful  reader.     "  Let  him  attend  not  to 

190 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

my  body  of  matter  but  to  the  fashion  in  which  I 
mould  it."  As  a  reader,  he  often  cared  only  to 
rest  his  busy  brain;  he  often  cared  only  to  give 
his  languid  brain  a  fillip;  but  sometimes  he  read 
pen  in  hand,  underlining  what  seemed  to  him 
remarkable;  commenting  and  questioning  upon 
the  margin;  alive  in  all  his  mind.  Finally  he 
would  sum  up,  briefly,  and.  as  one  who  speaks 
with  authority,  all  his  impressions  in  one  decisive 
estimate  of  his  author.  He  has  given  us  ex- 
amples of  such  verdicts  on  three  of  the  historians 
whom  he  had  read  with  special  attention — Guic- 
ciardini,  Philippe  de  Comines,  and,  descending 
from  the  past  to  his  own  early  days,  Martin  du 
Bellay  who  in  his  Memoirs  had  the  assistance  of 
his  brother,  Guillaume  de  Langey.  The  cynicism 
of  Guicciardini,  who  never  attributes  an  action  to 
any  but  a  base  or  a  self-interested  motive,  is  re- 
garded by  Montaigne  as  a  somewhat  shallow 
error  of  judgment.  The  moral  cjualitics  of  Co- 
mines  are  applauded  with  genuine  warmth,  but 
Montaigne  finds  in  his  work  a  certain  insuffi- 
ciency of  intellect.  The  Memoirs  of  Du  Bellay 
he  would  apparently  place  high  in  his  second  class 
rather  than  in  the  first  and  most  excellent  rank  of 
histories.  The  writers  lack  the  disinterested  free- 
dom of  spirit  which  he  finds  in  both  Joinville  and 
Comines;  their  work  is  more  an  apology  for 
King  Francis  than  genuine  history. 
191 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

The  Cresar,  so  fortunately  recovered  by  M. 
Parison,  adds  another  to  these  estimates  written 
by  Montaigne  upon  the  fly-leaves  of  his  books, 
when,  as  he  tells  us,  he  had  decided  not  to  read 
the  book  again  and  desired  to  preserve  his  im- 
mediate impression  from  the  blurring  effect  of 
time  upon  a  memory  on  which  recent  things  were 
constantly  scribbled  and  older  things  faded  or 
were  entirely  effaced.  Nearly  five  months  of  the 
year  1578  were  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  Com- 
mentaries. At  the  close  Montaigne  felt  that 
during  all  those  days  he  had  been  in  contact  with 
"  one  of  the  greatest  miracles  of  Nature" — for, 
indeed,  from  the  stuff  she  mingled  in  Caesar,  Na- 
ture might  have  made  two  extraordinary  men — 
an  incomparable  military  chief  and  also  an  his- 
torian of  absolute  precision  and  sincerity,  whose 
words  had  the  exactness  and  the  authority  which 
words  of  command  possess.*  After  the  first  en- 
thusiasm of  his  reading  had  declined,  Montaigne 
could  make  reservations;  if  he  turned  over  a 
page  it  was  still  with  a  sense  of  reverence  almost 
greater  than  can  be  due  to  human  works ;  but 
Caesar  was  ambitious ;  he  even  speaks  of  the 
"  ordure"  of  Caesar's  "  pestilent  ambition" — that 

*  This  MS.  note  in  Montaigne's  copy  of  Csesar  was 
printed  by  Dr.  Payen,  Documents  inedits,  No.  3  (1855), 
PP-  3i>  32,  and  is  given  by  M.  Bonnefon,  Montaigne  et  ses 
Amis,  I,  pp.  265,  266. 

192 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

of  a  "  pii1)lic  roliber",  who  has  left  a  memory 
"  abominable  to  all  worthy  men".  And  yet  the 
spell  of  Cresar  was  one  from  which  his  critic 
could  not  escape.  The  least  incident,  the  lightest 
word  of  Caesar  interested  Montaigne — how  he 
wore  rich  garments  in  battle,  how  he  honoured  a 
favourite  horse,  how  he  scratched  his  poll  with 
one  finger,  how  he  turned  away  his  eyes  from 
the  sight  of  Pompey's  head,  his  choice  of  a  death, 
"  the  least  premeditated  and  the  speediest",  his 
saying,  on  which  an  essay  is  founded,  that  it  is  a 
common  vice  of  nature  to  derive  most  assurance 
and  most  terror  from  things  unseen,  concealed, 
and  unknown.  He  thought  of  Caesar's  justice, 
his  clemency,  his  promptitude,  his  vigilance,  his 
patience  in  labour,  his  regard  for  friends,  the 
grandeur  of  his  courage,  his  great  amorousness 
which  never  trammelled  his  great  passion  for 
power — and  when  all  was  felt  and  pondered, 
Montaigne  concluded  that  ambition  had  spoilt 
the  most  rich  and  beautiful  nature  that  ever 
was. 

In  his  earlier  essays  Montaigne  occasionally 
makes  a  quotation  from  Tacitus,  but  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  devoted  serious  attention  to  that 
great  writer  until  the  period  of  leisure  which  fol- 
lowed those  years  during  which  he  held  the 
mayoralty  of  Bordeaux.  Then,  yielding  to  the 
urgency  of  a  friend,  he  read  in  Tacitus  constantly 
13  193 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

from  day  to  day,  and  in  Tacitus  alone.  It  was 
twenty  years,  he  says,  since  he  had  kept  to  any 
one  book  for  an  hour  together.  Montaigne  valued 
whatever  throws  light  on  personal  characters  and 
manners  in  history,  and  though  he  found  not  a 
little  of  this  in  Tacitus,  he  wished  for  more  than 
he  had  received.  He  thought  that  Tacitus  is 
sometimes  less  penetrating  in  his  judgments  of 
character  than  a  historian  ought  to  be.  He  com- 
mends him  for  his  courage  in  giving  reports  of 
things  in  themselves  improbable  or  hardly  credi- 
ble. We  ought  not  to  set  limits  to  the  power  of 
Nature;  we  ought  to  accept  the  testimony  of  wit- 
nesses. A  historian  should  record  even  popular 
rumours  and  opinions  as  a  highly  important  part 
of  history;  it  is  for  his  reader  to  consider  and 
pronounce  upon  their  truth.  He  censures  Tacitus 
— and  this  is  characteristic  of  the  author  of  the 
Essays — because,  having  to  refer  to  himself  as 
an  office-holder  of  dignity,  he  apologises  for  this 
reference  as  if  it  might  be  regarded  as  ostenta- 
tion. Such  an  apology  was  a  little  unworthy  of 
such  a  spirit  as  that  of  Tacitus :  "  Not  to  speak 
roundly  of  one's  self  convicts  a  writer  of  some 
want  of  courage;  a  man  of  inflexible  and  lofty 
judgment,  who  judges  soundly  and  surely,  makes 
use  of  instances  drawn  from  himself  on  all  occa- 
sions as  if  from  some  matter  foreign  to  him,  and 
bears  testimony  frankly  concerning  himself  as  if 
194 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

it  concerned  a  third  party."*  Montaigne,  as  a 
critic  of  literature,  is  not  ill  represented  by  the 
words  in  which  he  sums  up  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  the  work  of  Tacitus :  "  It  is  rather  a  judgment 
than  a  narration  of  history ;  f  there  are  in  it  more 
precepts  than  stories;  it  is  not  a  book  to  read, 
but  one  to  study  and  learn ;  it  is  so  full  of  moral 
sentences  that  some  of  these  are  right,  some 
wrong;  it  is  a  nursery  of  ethic  and  politic  dis- 
courses for  the  use  and  ornament  of  those  who 
have  any  place  in  the  management  of  the  world. 
He  always  urges  his  plea  with  strong  and  solid 
reasons,  in  a  style  full  of  points  and  subtleties, 
according  to  the  fashion  affected  by  his  age ;  they 
so  loved  a  swelling  dignity  that  where  they  failed 
to  find  points  and  subtleties  in  things,  they  sought 
for  these  in  words.  He  does  not  fall  much  short 
of  Seneca's  way  of  writing;  he  seems  to  me  the 
more  brawny  (charnii) ;  Seneca,  the  more  keen. 
The  service  he  renders  is  most  suitable  to  a 
crazed,  troubled  state  such  as  ours  at  present  is; 
you  would  often  say  that  he  paints  us  and  pinches 
us  to  the  quick."  :}: 

Plutarch — the   French    Plutarch   of   Amyot — 
had  a  double  attraction  for  Montaigne;    he  was 

*  Essays,  III,  8. 

t  The  word  narration    (1588)    became  deduction  in  the 
later  edition  of  the  Essays  (1595). 
t  Essays,  III,  8. 

195 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

both  historian  and  moralist.  As  a  historian  he 
seemed  to  Montaigne  to  be  pre-eminent  as  a  judge 
of  human  actions.  As  a  morahst  he  was  not  a 
maker  of  systems,  but  a  penetrating  observer  of 
the  facts  of  human  nature,  who  wrote  discur- 
sively and  who  could  be  read  in  a  spirit  of  serious 
gaiety.  "  I  have  not  had  commerce  with  any 
solid  book,"  Montaigne  writes  to  the  Countess  de 
Gurson,  "  except  Plutarch  and  Seneca,  from 
whom,  like  the  Danaides,  I  draw  my  water,  in- 
cessantly filling  and  as  fast  emptying."  The 
Morals  of  Plutarch  were  as  frequently  in  the 
hands  of  Montaigne  as  the  Lives,  and  he  found 
it  highly  satisfactory  that  if  his  favourite  author 
was  in  a  certain  sense  a  philosopher,  he  was 
assuredly  no  metaphysician.  The  metaphysical 
systems  of  the  old  world  floated  past  Plutarch 
like  wrecks  after  a  tempest.  He  had  his  own 
tendencies,  his  own  grasps  of  guess,  but  he  never 
fashioned  these  into  a  foursquare  body  of  doc- 
trine. '*  He  is  perhaps  the  sole  moralist  of  an- 
tiquity," writes  M.  Octave  Greard,  "  who  has  not 
discussed  the  problem  of  the  sovereign  good."  * 
He  was,  like  Montaigne  himself,  an  interested 
student  of  the  world  and  of  human  life;  he  loved, 
like  Montaigne,  the  concrete ;  he  reasons  through 
examples.     Had  Montaigne  needed  a  model  for 

*  Dc  la  Morale  dc  Plutarcjtic,  p.  53. 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

his  Essays,  some  of  the  discourses  of  Plutarch 
miglit  have  stood  him  in  good  stead.  Pkitarch's 
writings — to  quote  M.  Greard  again — seem  often 
the  rendezvous  of  all  the  doctrines,  and  some  of 
Montaigne's  own  essays  could  hardly  be  more 
accurately  described. 

Through  his  imagination,  and  only  through  it, 
Montaigne  was — or,  to  be  more  exact,  was  at 
times — a  Stoic.  Seneca  served  him  if  not  as  a 
director  of  his  conscience,  at  least  as  a  guide  to 
his  imaginative  ideals  of  morality.  His  name,  as 
in  the  opening  of  the  essay  on  the  Institution  of 
Children  is  often  coupled  with  that  of  Plutarch. 
Both  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  moralists  pleased 
him  because  they  could  be  read  in  short,  discon- 
nected pieces — "  it  is  no  great  matter  to  take  them 
in  hand,  and  I  quit  them  when  I  list."  Montaigne, 
in  his  musings,  was  conducted  by  Seneca  up  the 
rugged  heights  which  led  to  a  somewhat  barren 
pinnacle  of  virtue.  But  when  he  awoke  from  his 
musings  he  found  himself  upon  the  plain,  the  plain 
it  may  be  of  an  elevated  table-land,  and  Plutarch 
was  his  companion  in  his  search  after  a  temperate, 
amiable,  unrepelling  human  virtue,  which  should 
serve  him  in  his  daily  needs.  In  an  essay  of 
the  Third  Book  —  that  Of  Physiognomy  —  he 
contrasts  Seneca's  laboured  efforts  to  fortify 
himself  against  death,  his  sweating  and  panting 
in  the  toil  of  it,  with  Plutarch's  more  virile  way, 
197 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

that  of  a  soul  whose  motions  are  regular  and 
assured.  Yet  he  remembers  that,  after  all,  Seneca 
did  not  fail  in  the  last  trial :  "  The  one — Seneca 
— more  sharp,"  he  says,  "  pricks  us,  and  sends 
us  off  with  a  start;  he  touches  the  spirit  more. 
The  other — Plutarch — more  solid,  fashions,  es- 
tablishes, and  supports  us  constantly.  That 
ravishes  our  judgment;  this  wins  it";  or,  as  he 
elsewhere  has  it,  Seneca  impels  and  Plutarch 
guides  us.  An  entire  essay  (Book  II,  32)  is 
devoted  to  a  grateful  defence  of  his  two  chief 
teachers  against  what  Montaigne  regarded  as  un- 
just criticism.  Montaigne  cannot  credit  the  accu- 
sation that  the  life  of  Seneca  gave  the  lie  to  his 
writings,  that  he  was  effeminate,  ambitious, 
avaricious,  a  false  pretender  to  philosophy.  And 
he  maintains  against  his  contemporary,  Jean 
Bodin,  the  eminent  author  of  TJic  Republic,  that 
Plutarch,  the  most  judicious  author  in  the  world, 
exhibited  no  want  of  judgment  in  setting  down 
things  in  his  story  which  might  to  Bodin  ap- 
pear incredible  or  absolutely  fabulous.  Looking 
around  him  at  the  surprising  events  and  incidents 
of  his  own  time,  looking  into  his  own  heart  and 
perceiving  there  the  seeds  of  all  possible  mag- 
nanimities, all  possible  meannesses,  Montaigne 
believed  that  we  should  be  slow  to  affirm  of  any- 
thing that  it  is  incredible.  But  Plutarch's  ex- 
cellent judgment  appears  less  strikingly  in  his 
198 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

narrative  than  in  his  parallels  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans — precisely  where  Bodin  failed  to  recog- 
nise it,  where  Bodin  charged  Plutarch  with  unfair 
partiality  for  the  Greeks. 

Montaigne  loved  an  author  who  gave  him  a 
quick  and  full  return  for  the  time  and  pains  be- 
stowed by  the  reader.  He  complains  that  Cicero 
fatigued  him  with  his  long  preparatory  or  initia- 
tory passages : 

"  What  there  is  in  him  of  life  and  marrow  is  smothered 
by  his  long  preambles.  When  I  have  spent  an  hour  in 
reading  him,  which  is  much  for  me,  and  try  to  recall  what 
I  have  thence  extracted  of  juice  and  substance,  for  the 
most  part  I  find  nothing  but  wind.  .  .  .  For  me,  who  de- 
sire only  to  become  more  wise,  not  more  learned  or  elo- 
quent, these  logical  and  Aristotelian  dispositions  of  parts 
are  unsuitable ;  I  would  have  one  begin  with  the  last  and 
chief  point.  I  know  well  enough  what  death  and  pleasure 
are;  let  not  a  man  busy  himself  to  anatomise  these.  I 
look  for  good  and  solid  reasons,  at  the  outset,  which  may 
instruct  me  how  to  sustain  their  assaults ;  for  which  pur- 
pose neither  grammatical  subtleties,  nor  the  ingenious  con- 
texture of  words  and  argumentations  are  of  any  avail.  .  .  . 
I  would  not  have  an  author  make  it  his  business  to  render 
me  attentive,  or  that  he  should  shout  at  me  fifty  times 
Oycz!  as  they  do.  The  Romans  in  their  religious  exercises 
were  wont  to  say  Hoc  age ;  we,  in  ours,  say  Sursum  corda; 
these  are  so  many  lost  words  for  me ;  I  come  already 
fully  prepared  from  my  chamber.  I  need  no  allurement, 
no  sauce;  I  eat  the  meat  uncooked;  and  instead  of  whet- 
ting my  appetite  with  these  preparatives  and  flourishes, 
they  tire  and  pall  it."  * 

*  Essays,  II,  lo. 
199 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

These  are  the  confessions  of  a  hearty  lover  of 
good  books,  read  not  for  scholarship  but  for  the 
uses  of  life.  The  acknowledgments  made  in 
favour  of  Cicero  are  made,  as  it  were,  against  the 
grain.  And  here,  as  elsewhere,  Montaigne  takes 
his  own  way,  for  Cicero  was  exalted,  by  virtue  of 
that  eloquence  which  Montaigne  recognises  and 
applauds,  to  a  pre-eminent  place  in  the  esteem  of 
classical  students  in  Renaissance  days.  The  man 
himself  (and  now  Montaigne  accepts  what  he  calls 
the  common  opinion)  seemed  wanting  in  dignity 
and  strength  of  soul ;  a  mendicant  spirit  that 
could  not  live  without  the  alms  of  popular  ap- 
plause. "  Shame  upon  that  eloquence,"  he  cries, 
"  which  fills  us  with  desire  of  itself  and  not  of  ac- 
tual things !  Unless,  indeed,  one  should  argue  that 
Cicero's  eloquence  is  of  such  supreme  perfection 
that  it  constitutes  a  substantial  body  in  itself." 

To  handle  things — that  was  what  brought 
satisfaction  to  Montaigne,  and  the  book  which 
brought  him  things  in  their  real  substance  was 
the  book  he  prized,  not  that  which  merely  ar- 
ranged a  decoration  of  words.  He  viewed  the 
art  of  rhetoric  with  suspicion;  it  was  often  like 
rougeing  and  plastering  a  wrinkled  and  faded 
face.  The  truly  "  consular  spirits"  of  ancient 
Rome  were  not  masters  of  tongue-fence.  The 
jargon  of  the  fine  arts,  the  jargon  of  literary 
criticism  seemed  to  him  of  no  more  real  meaning 
200 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

than  the  babble  of  his  chambermaid.  He  had  the 
advantage,  on  one  occasion,  of  holding  discourse 
with  a  master  of  eloquence  who  was  also  an  emi- 
nent master  of  science — an  Italian,  formerly 
house-steward  of  Cardinal  Caraffa.  Montaigne 
loved  to  converse  with  a  learned  man  in  his  spe- 
cial province.  With  profound  gravity  and  a 
magisterial  countenance  the  great  artist  poured 
forth  an  eloquent  discourse  on  the  gullet-science, 
as  if  he  were  handling  some  high  point  of  the- 
ology. Montaigne  with  a  reserved  smile  noted 
the  orator's  divisions  and  subdivisions,  and  re- 
cords them  in  the  essay  on  The  Vanity  of  Words. 
The  exordium  in  particular  was  adorned  with 
rich  and  magnificent  phrases,  such  as  we  make 
use  of  when  treating  of  the  government  of  an 
empire.  But  the  great  rhetorician's  interlocutor 
would  have  valued  more  a  hare  or  a  haddock 
creditably  cooked. 

Looking  back  in  his  elder  days  upon  the 
"  three  commerces"  or  societies  which  had  made 
up  so  large  a  portion  of  his  life — that  with  men 
in  friendship  and  the  clasp  of  minds,  that  with 
women  in  the  delights  of  beauty  and  of  art,  and 
that  calmer  commerce  with  the  faithful  com- 
panions on  the  shelves  of  his  library — Montaigne 
cannot  assign  the  highest  place  to  the  last  except 
for  its  virtues  of  facility  and  constancy.  Many 
persons  require  some  foreign  matter  to  give  their 
20 1 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

thinking  power  exercise  and  animation;  for  his 
own  part  he  obtained  these  when  his  mind  made  a 
return  upon  itself  and  recollected  itself  in  solitary 
meditatings.  Books  brought  him  rest  or  distrac- 
tion more  often  than  exercise;  they  might,  in- 
deed, debauch  the  mind  by  diverting  it  from  its 
more  vigorous,  unassisted  toil.  And  yet  when  he 
read,  he  often  found  his  intellect  rising  to  grapple 
with  things,  his  judgment — that  which  he  most 
valued  in  himself — engaging  itself  in  a  manly 
play.  And  so  he  looks  gratefully  from  his  chair 
at  "  the  learned  shelf"  and  finds  that  he  had 
rightly  named  its  contents  "  meas  delicias."  This 
commerce  with  books  had  been  with  him,  during 
his  whole  course  of  youth  and  manhood,  always 
an  assistance  to  his  life :  "  It  consoles  me  in  old 
age  and  solitude;  it  eases  me  from  the  weight  of 
weary  indolence,  and  delivers  me  at  all  hours 
from  vexatious  company;  it  blunts  the  edge  of 
pain  if  this  be  not  extreme  and  masterful.  To 
divert  myself  from  any  importunate  fancy,  I  have 
only  to  turn  to  my  books;  they  readily  win  me 
to  themselves,  and  banish  the  other  from  my 
mind,  nor  do  they  mutiny  because  they  perceive 
that  I  seek  them  only  for  want  of  other  com- 
modities more  real,  lively,  and  natural ;  they  ever 
entertain    me    with    the    same    countenance."  * 

*  Essays,  III,  3. 
202 


MONTAIGNE    AMONG    HIS    BOOKS 

Troubled  with  a  painful  malady  during  these 
latter  years,  Montaigne  felt  that  he  resembled 
King  James  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  who  was  borne 
about  in  a  poor  gray  robe  on  a  pitiful  litter,  but 
attended  with  royal  pomp,  gallant  nobles  and 
gentlemen,  led  horses,  and  splendid  circumstance. 
The  volumes  around  his  walls  were  Montaigne's 
brave  attendants.  If  he  was  not  actually  enjoy- 
ing his  possessions,  he  knew,  like  a  miser,  that  his 
wealth  was  there  to  gloat  over  when  he  pleased. 
"  This  is  the  best  munition,"  he  says,  "  that  I 
have  found  in  our  human  wayfaring,  and  I  pity 
much  those  men  of  understanding  who  are  un- 
provided of  it.  I  the  rather  accept  any  other  sort 
of  amusement  how  light  soever,  because  this  can 
never  fail  me." 

The  best  viaticum  of  the  journey  through  this 
our  life!  Such  a  happiness  in  communing  with 
the  highest  intellects  for  the  sake  of  exercise  and 
rest,  of  wisdom  and  comfort  and  recreation,  had 
in  it  something  of  the  nature  of  virtue.  This  was 
not  the  dilettante's  regard  for  books,  though  in 
Montaigne  there  was  something  of  the  dilet- 
tante; it  was  essentially  a  virile  passion  of  the 
mind. 


203 


CHAPTER    VII 

LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

The  life  of  Montaigne  during  those  years 
when  the  essays  of  the  first  two  books  were  grad- 
ually forming  themselves  was  by  no  means  that 
of  a  recluse.  A  new  link  of  connection  with  the 
great  world  was  created  in  the  early  days  of  his 
retirement,  when,  on  October  i8,  1571,  he  re- 
ceived from  Blois  a  letter  in  which  Charles  IX. 
informed  him  that  "  for  his  virtues  and  merits"  he 
had  been  chosen  and  elected  as  one  of  the  Knights 
of  the  Order  of  St.  Michael,  and  directed  him 
to  repair  to  the  Marquis  de  Trans  in  order  that 
he  might  receive  from  his  hands  the  collar  of  the 
order.  He  had  in  his  earlier  manhood  desired 
much  to  obtain  this  honour.  It  was  then  a  mark 
of  rare  distinction.  When  fortune  brought  it  to 
him,  he  says  with  a  touch  of  irony,  she  was  kinder 
than  he  had  hoped;  instead  of  lifting  him  up  out 
of  his  place,  she  brought  the  coveted  honour  down 
as  low  as  his  own  shoulders,  and  even  lower. 
The  collar  had  in  truth  been  cheapened  by  the 
efforts  of  the  Guises  to  secure  friends  and  fol- 
lowers at  little  cost  to  themselves,  and  by  the  care- 
less facility  of  Charles  in  his  distribution  of  re- 
wards. M.  Courbet  has  conjectured  that  Gas- 
204 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

ton  de  Foix,  the  Marquis  de  Trans,  having  fallen 
under  the  serious  displeasure  of  the  Chancellor 
L'Hopital,  on  the  occasion  of  the  visit  of  Charles 
IX.  to  Bordeaux  six  years  previously,  may  have 
engaged  the  services  of  Montaigne  with  the  Chan- 
cellor on  his  own  behalf,  and  may  now  have 
cleared  off  the  old  score  by  procuring  a  cheap  dis- 
tinction for  the  man  who  had  done  him  a  good 
turn.  Some  scornful  words  of  Brantome,  who 
had  a  touch  or  aristocratic  disdain  for  the  legal 
profession,  indicate  that  the  Marquis  had  a  hand 
in  obtaining  the  collar  for  Montaigne.  However 
this  may  have  been,  Montaigne  reserved  for  him- 
self, a  little  inconsistently,  the  double  satisfaction 
of  pride  in  the  distinction  and  pride  in  being 
superior  to  that  pride.  He  displayed  the  collar  in 
effigy  upon  the  walls  of  his  chapel  and  his  private 
cabinet  in  the  tower.  He  makes  little  of  the 
honour — degraded  during  recent  years  —  in  two 
of  the  essays.*  And  as  the  order  had  been  origi- 
nally designed  to  reward  not  merely  valiant  sol- 
diers but  great  military  leaders,  he  finds,  with 
some  subtlety,  a  warrant  of  his  own  inclusion  in 
it.  Military  valour  and  prudence  are,  after  all, 
only  one  ray  issuing  from  that  perfect  and  philo- 
sophical valiance,  that  force  and  assurance  of  the 
soul,  which  enable  it  to  despise  all  kinds  of  ad- 

*  Book  II,  7;   and  Book  II,  12. 
205 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

verse  accidents  and  to  remain  equable,  uniform, 
and  constant.  Montaigne  was  aware  that  he  was 
far  from  being  the  tranquil  possessor  of  such 
philosophical  valiance,  yet  it  was  an  ideal  which 
he  held  up  before  himself,  and  which  in  some  in- 
adequate degree  had  even  incorporated  itself  with 
his  spirit. 

In  1574  Charles  IX.  was  succeeded  on  the 
throne  by  his  brother,  Henri  III.  It  is  certain 
that  Montaigne  was  one  of  the  many  gentlemen 
in  ordinary  of  the  King's  chamber,  but  the  date 
of  his  appointment  has  not  been  ascertained.  On 
the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  of  the  Essays 
(1580)  the  author  describes  himself  as  "Cheva- 
lier de  Vordre  du  Roy  et  Gentil-homme  ordinaire 
dc  sa  Chambre."  Such  gentlemen  in  ordinary 
were  very  numerous;  the  Venetian  ambassadors 
to  the  Court  in  1577  were  impressed  by  the  great 
array  of  the  King's  attendants.  The  duties  of 
those  in  residence  were  not  laborious;  they  in- 
troduced persons  to  the  royal  presence,  and  held 
themselves  in  readiness  to  receive  and  execute  his 
orders.  But  so  great  was  the  number  of  these 
functionaries  that  residence  was  probably  not  re- 
quired of  all.  The  title  served  as  a  distinction, 
and  permitted  its  owner,  if  he  desired  it,  to  ap- 
proach the  person  of  the  monarch.*     A  like  ap- 

*  A.  Grijn,  La  Vie  puhliqtic  de  Montaigne,  p.  180. 
206 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

pointment — and  here  Montaigne's  own  entry  in 
the  Ephcmcridcs  of  Beuther  enables  us  to  fix  the 
date,  November  29,  1577 — was  conferred  upon 
him  by  King  Henri  of  Navarre.  Why  this 
favour,  unsought  by  its  recipient  and  unknown 
to  him  until  the  letters  patent  were  placed  in  his 
hands,  was  conferred  can  only  be  conjectured. 
Montaigne's  relations  with  Henri  of  Navarre  at 
a  later  date  were  of  a  close  and  confidential  char- 
acter. It  may  be  that  in  1577,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested, he  had  already  rendered  some  service  to 
the  King  of  Navarre  and  also  to  his  fellow  citi- 
zens in  difficulties  which  had  arisen  when  Henri 
desired  to  enter  the  city  and  the  civic  authorities 
were  obliged  to  intimate  to  him  their  unwilling- 
ness to  receive  him.*  When  at  Blois  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1588,  a  witness  of  the  meeting  of  the 
States  General,  Montaigne  entered  into  conversa- 
tion with  the  historian  De  Thou.  In  his  Memoirs 
De  Thou  reports  words  of  Montaigne  to  the  effect 
that  he  had  formerly  acted  as  an  intermediary 
between  the  King  of  Navarre  and  the  Duke  of 
Guise  when  these  princes  were  at  the  Court ;  that 
the  Duke  had  made  every  effort  to  gain  the  friend- 
ship of  the  King;  that  he  had  found  this  impos- 
sible, and  as  a  last  resource  to  defend  the  honour 
of  his  house,  had  resorted  to  war;   and  that  each 


*  E.  Courbet,  Essays,  Vol.  V,  pp.  104,  105. 
207 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

of  the  two  could  live  in  security  only  through  the 
death  of  the  other.  As  to  religion,  Montaigne 
went  on,  which  they  both  paraded  as  a  motive,  it 
was  a  mere  pretext  to  confirm  their  respective 
followers;  the  fear  of  being  deserted  by  the 
Protestants  prevented  the  King  of  Navarre  from 
declaring  himself  a  Catholic,  and  the  Duke  would 
have  been  ready  to  accept  the  Confession  of  Augs- 
burg, had  it  not  been  prejudicial  to  his  interests. 
If  the  negotiation  referred  to  by  Montaigne  really 
took  place  at  the  Court  of  the  French  King,  it  must 
be  assigned  to  some  date  between  the  marriage  of 
Henri  of  Navarre  in  August,  1572,  and  his  escape 
from  the  Court  in  February,  1576.  But  it  seems 
on  various  grounds  probable  that  in  his  mention 
of  the  presence  of  the  King  of  Navarre  at  the 
Court,  De  Thou  cannot  have  accurately  reported 
Montaigne's  conversation.  His  diplomatic  ser- 
vices between  the  great  rivals  may  more  probably 
belong  to  a  later  date — perhaps  to  a  date  between 
his  return  from  Italy  and  1588,  the  year  of  the 
publication  of  the  Essays,  in  their  extended  form, 
and  that  of  the  assassination  of  the  Duke  of 
Guise.  It  is  not  desirable  to  construct  from  slen- 
der hints  an  imaginary  biography  of  Montaigne, 
but  we  may  be  assured  that  in  such  a  negotiation 
as  this — whatever  its  date  may  be — he  would 
have  impressed  the  parties  concerned  favourably 
by  his  manifest  fidelity,  his  openness,  his  discre- 
208 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

tion,  his  desire  for  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  ques- 
tions at  issue,  his  real  disinterestedness.  These 
merits  as  a  diplomatic  agent  he  claims  for  himself 
in  the  Essays,  and  such  independent  testimony  as 
we  possess  confirms  his  not  overweening  asser- 
tion. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  treat  as  of  high  im- 
portance what  has  been  called  the  "  public  life" 
of  Montaigne  during  the  decade  which  preceded 
his  travels  in  Italy.  Yet,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
acted  in  1574  as  the  intermediary  between  the 
Duke  de  Montpensier  and  the  Parliament  of  Bor- 
deaux and  he  acquitted  himself  well.  Such  an 
incident  as  this  was,  however,  only  the  interrup- 
tion of  a  life  essentially  private,  spent  in  the 
chateau  with  his  wife  in  the  old  French  fashion, 
among  the  labourers  in  the  fields  who  capped  to 
him  as  he  went  by  on  horseback  with  his  hounds, 
and  whose  homely  virtues  he  regarded  with  so 
much  respect — for  he  knew  the  pleasures  of  the 
chase,  though  he  shrank  remorsefully  from  its 
triumphs — above  all  in  his  library  meditating 
much,  reading  a  little,  and  either  writing  now 
and  again  a  page  or  dictating  to  that  servant-man 
who  once  made  off  with  the  manuscript  as  if  it 
were  a  treasure,  and  who  got  so  little — Mon- 
taigne reflected  to  his  comfort — through  such  a 
refined  taste  in  peculation. 

After  the  death  of  his  first  child  in  1570  he  was 
14  209 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

not  for  long  childless.  On  September  9,  1571, 
his  daughter  Leonor  was  born.  Four  other  chil- 
dren followed  during  the  twelve  succeeding  years; 
but  Mademoiselle  de  Montaigne,  with  all  her 
household  virtues,  was  not  "  generous"  enough 
to  give  her  husband  a  son;  and  of  his  six  girls 
only  Leonor  lived  to  be  more  than  an  infant. 
Montaigne  was  one  of  those  fathers  who^  while 
not  lacking  in  paternal  tenderness,  have  no  ex- 
ultant pleasure  in  the  small  new-born  human  ani- 
mal ;  it  was  the  growing  intellect  of  a  child  which 
interested  him.  He  did  not  choose  that  his  babies 
should  be  put  to  nurse  in  the  chateau;  their 
foster-mothers  were  peasants  of  the  neighbour- 
hood ;  and,  when  he  recalls,  with  a  real  or  affected 
vagueness,  that  he  had  lost  "  two  or  three"  of 
these  nurselings,  he  confesses  that  his  regret, 
though  it  might  have  been  real,  was  not  acute; 
yet  there  is  hardly  any  accident,  he  adds,  which 
more  touches  men  to  the  quick  than  the  death  of 
a  child.  Montaigne  did  not  love  sorrow,  and  had 
no  pride  in  maintaining  it  in  its  excess;  he  was 
always  happy  to  be  happy,  in  which,  as  well  as  in 
the  pride  of  sorrow,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  human 
nature.  His  regard  for  children  was  not  slight, 
as  the  essay  on  Education  shows.  His  heart 
was  tender;  he  delighted  to  set  free  any  captive 
wild  creature  of  the  woods  or  fields;  he  speaks 
of  what  was  little  understood  in  the  sixteenth 
210 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

century,  the  duty  of  humanity  not  only  to  all  our 
living  fellow  creatures  which  have  life  and  sense, 
but  even  to  trees  and  plants,     "  We  owe  justice 
to  men,"  he  writes,  "  and  graciousness  and  be-  : 
nignity  to  other  creatures  that  are  capable  of  re-  ; 
ceiving  these;   there  is  a  certain  commerce  and  a 
mutual  obligation  between  them  and  us.     Nor  do  ■ 
I  fear  to  confess  the  tenderness  of  my  nature,  as  j 
so  childish  that  I  cannot  well  refuse  to  my  dog  i 
the  merrymaking  which  he  unseasonably  offers  i 
or  asks  of  me."     And  in  a  well-known  passage : 
"  When  I  play  with  my  cat,  who  knows  whether 
I  do  not  make  her  more  sport  than  she  makes 
me?    we   mutually  divert   each   other   with   our 
monkey-tricks ;    if  I  have  my  hour  to  begin  or 
refuse,  she  also  has  hers."    Such  a  man  could  not 
but  have  responded  to  the  pretty  ways  and  wiles 
of  a  child.     Yet  he  thought  that  there  is  a  wiser 
and  better  way  of  loving  our  children  than  for 
our  own  sport,  ''  like  monkeys".    The  ideal  train- 
ing, he  thought,  is  that  which  results  in  making 
a  father  and  his  children  friends  and,  as  far  as 
may  be,  comrades.     Having  the  memory  abiding 
with  him  of  his  own  father's  gentleness,  he  be- 
lieved that  harshness  can  serve  no  good  purpose 
in  domestic  relations.    He  had  seen  fathers — and 
such  instances  in  those  wild  times  were  not  few — 
who  had  refused  their  sons  every  need  and  every 
indulgence,  and  driven  them  to  a  life  of  robbery 

211 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

and  open  violence.  For  his  own  part  he  held 
that  a  father  should  share  his  worldly  goods  with 
his  adult  children,  and  might  with  advancing 
years  wisely  resign  the  domestic  authority  to  a 
son,  though  with  the  power  of  resuming  it,  should 
a  necessity  arise.  He  thought  that  no  position 
can  well  be  more  miserable  than  that  of  an  old 
man  who  has  a  passion  for  rule  and  is  incapable 
of  ruling,  who  is  feared  without  being  respected, 
who  spies  and  is  spied  upon,  who  is  viewed  only 
as  the  senile  holder  of  possessions  which  are 
coveted  by  those  who  are  capable  of  enjoying 
them.  Next  to  the  verdict  of  one's  own  con- 
science he  considered  the  opinion  held  of  a  man 
in  his  own  household  the  surest  testimony  as  to 
character  and  conduct.  "  Few  men  have  been  ad- 
mired by  their  domestics;  no  man  has  ever  been 
a  prophet,  not  merely  in  his  own  house,  but  in  his 
country."  He  bore  himself  in  his  household 
openly :  he  loved  to  show  frankly  all  that  was 
in  him;  to  live,  as  it  were,  in  the  full  light  and 
the  open  air.  Sometimes  a  sudden  fit  of  anger 
came  upon  him ;  he  did  not  then  consume  his  own 
smoke,  a  process  which  may  darken  the  counte- 
nance for  days;  his  passion  if  sharp  was  short; 
he  tried  to  moderate  the  little  whirl  of  temper  and 
to  accept  good  humour  gladly  as  soon  as  it  re- 
turned. Occasionally  he  found  it  expedient  to 
feign  anger,  for  a  dull-witted  servant  can  hardly 

212 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

be  ruled  by  the  rod  of  a  refined  irony.  As  to 
little  Leonor,  she  never  saw  the  rod  and  never 
heard  from  father  or  mother  any  words  that  were 
not  kind.  And  had  his  children  been  sons,  Mon- 
taigne declares,  he  would  have  been  even  more 
studious  to  preserve  in  them  a  spirit  of  frank  in- 
dependence, for  the  male  is  less  born  to  subjection 
than  the  female — "  I  should  have  loved  to  expand 
their  hearts  with  ingenuousness  and  freedom." 
It  was,  no  doubt,  a  cause  of  some  regret  for  him 
that  he  was  without  a  son,  though  he  professes 
that  the  common  desire  for  an  heir  male  is  un- 
reasonable in  its  degree.  There  was  much  in  his 
daughter's  upbringing  with  which  Montaigne 
could  not  or  would  not  meddle — "  feminine  polity 
hath  a  mysterious  procedure;  we  must  e'en  leave 
it  to  them."  Leonor  was  of  a  "  tardy  com- 
plexion"— lingering  still  in  childish  girlhood, 
when  she  might  have  been  expected  to  have 
bloomed  into  womanhood.  From  her  mother  and 
a  certain  ancient  dame,  as  learned  as  Lady  Capu- 
let's  nurse — her  mother's  assistant  —  the  child 
acquired  the  proprieties  and  the  pruderies  for 
which  her  father  had  small  respect ;  they  formed 
part  of  the  mysterious  feminine  polity,  and  he  did 
not  interfere.  He  taught  her,  as  far  as  was  per- 
missible, frankness  and  entire  truthfulness — 
truthfulness  even  in  her  little  sports.  When  at 
a  later  time  Montaigne  would  quit  his  tower,  and 
213 


MICHEL   DE    MONTAIGNE 

enjoy  a  game  of  cards  with  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ter, he  was  punctiHous  in  observing  the  strictest 
fairness  in  play;  veracity,  which  is  the  bond  of 
society,  cannot  be  too  much  insisted  on.  At  other 
times  the  game  was  not  at  cards,  but  of  Mon- 
taigne's own  invention — one  of  those  clever  de- 
vices with  which  clever  men  puzzle  and  plague 
their  womankind;  the  game,  we  may  call  it,  of 
extremes  and  the  mean.  Mademoiselle  de  Mon- 
taigne— good,  busy  housekeeper — and  Leonor, 
of  the  tardy  complexion,  were  challenged  to 
name  the  greatest  number  of  things  in  which  the 
extremes  had  somewhat  in  common  with  each 
other  which  was  not  possessed  by  the  mean. 
Were  they  too  unapt  for  the  sport  or  too  respect- 
ful to  name  among  these  things  a  philosopher  and 
a  fool?  In  such  a  sport  Montaigne  was  sure  to 
win.  He  had  in  general  renounced  games  of 
mingled  skill  and  chance  for  the  unphilosophical 
reason  that  he  could  not  bear  to  be  beaten  with- 
out more  disturbance  of  temper  than  was  agree- 
able. Chess  he  hated,  because  it  is  too  earnest  a 
pursuit,  and  he  chose  to  concentrate  his  attention 
on  what  yielded  a  better  result. 

Frankness  and  simplicity — these  were  what 
Montaigne  most  cared  for  in  his  home.  Cere- 
monious ways  might  be  proper  in  the  courts  of 
kings,  but  they  seemed  out  of  place  in  the  simple 
house  of  a  country  gentleman.  The  little  Leo- 
214 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

nor  was  not  instructed  to  address  her  father  by 
the  customary  titles  of  reverence.  The  word 
"father"  was  enough;  it  signified  both  rever- 
ence and  affection.  "  We  call  God  Almighty 
'  Father',''  Montaigne  writes,  "  and  we  disdain 
to  have  our  children  call  us  so;  in  my  family 
I  have  reformed  that  error."  If  a  friend  or  a 
stranger  took  up  his  abode  for  a  while  in  the  hos- 
pitable chateau,  he  found  that  it  deserved  the 
name  of  Liberty  Hall.  Through  ceremonies  and 
formalities,  as  Montaigne  thought,  we  lose  the. 
substance  of  things  for  the  shadows;  "  ceremony 
forbids  us  to  express  by  words  things  that  are 
lawful  and  natural,  and  we  hold  by  it;  reason 
forbids  us  to  do  things  unlawful  and  evil,  and 
we  will  not  listen  to  it."  In  the  chateau  both  the 
master,  his  household,  and  his  guests  enjoyed  an 
unaccustomed  freedom ;  "  there  is  here  a  truce 
to  ceremony,  to  usherings  and  attendance  at  de- 
partures and  such  like  troublesome  rules  of  cour- 
tesy ;  oh,  the  servile  and  importunate  custom !" 
Every  one  governs  himself  after  his  own  fashion; 
he  who  pleases,  may  indulge  or  communicate  his 
thoughts;  I  sit  mute,  musing  and  self-involved, 
without  offence  to  my  guests."  Now  and  again, 
perhaps,  some  dignified  visitor  might  be  ruffled 
a  little  because  he  had  not  been  greeted  on  his 
arrival  and  conducted  with  state  to  the  principal 
apartment.     Montaigne  comforted  himself  with 

215 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

the  reflection  that  it  was  better  to  offend  a 
stranger  once  than  incommode  himself  every  day, 
for  that  would  be  a  perpetual  servitude.  He  had 
been  carefully  taught  in  his  youth  the  observances 
of  society;  he  accommodated  himself,  wherever 
he  went,  to  the  customs  of  the  place;  but  he 
would  not  be  tied  to  a  code  of  artificial  manners, 
and  he  thought  that  if  a  formality  is  omitted,  not 
through  ignorance  but  discretion,  the  omission 
may  be  as  agreeable  as  the  observance,  "  I  have 
often,"  he  says,  "  seen  men  uncivil  by  overcivility 
and  troublesome  in  their  courtesy." 

No  one,  when  he  found  the  right  person,  en- 
joyed talk  more  heartily  or  entered  into  it  with 
more  spirit  than  Montaigne.  He  felt  that  he  was 
a  little  too  fastidious  in  the  choice  of  the  persons 
to  whom  he  could  open  his  mind,  and  he  envied 
those  whose  facile  disposition  made  them  all 
things  to  all  men.  He  would  have  liked  to  talk 
to  a  neighbour  of  his  building,  his  hunting,  his 
quarrels ;  to  chat  with  a  carpenter  or  a  gardener ; 
to  speak  not  only  amiably,  as  he  did,  but  famili- 
arly with  a  household  retainer,  from  whom  the 
poor  prerogative  of  fortune  ought  not  to  estrange 
a  master.  Still  he  must  needs  make  distinctions ; 
while  there  were  moods  in  which,  contrary  to  his 
wont,  he  could  even  suffer  fools  gladly ;  and,  after 
a  manner  ascribed  at  a  later  time  to  Addison  and 
to  Swift's  delightful  Stella,  would  gently  lead 
216 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

tliem  on  in  their  self-conceited  folly;  in  general 
what  he  most  desired  was  what  he  too  rarely 
found — the  company  of  worthy  and  accomplished 
men.  With  regard  to  the  majority  of  his  ac- 
quaintances he  was  content  to  believe  that  if  he 
did  not  give  them  reason  to  love  him,  no  man 
ever  gave  less  occasion  of  being  hated  ;  they  knew 
that  he  did  not  surrender  himself  wholly  to  them; 
they  may  have  thought  him  reserved  or  even  cold ; 
but  at  least  he  had  excited  no  animosities,  he  had 
offended  no  susceptibilities.  He  felt,  indeed,  that 
he  could  not  give  himself  by  halves;  it  must  be 
all  or  almost  nothing;  "my  motion  is  not 
natural,  if  it  be  not  with  full  sail."  But  having 
found  the  right  man,  he  abandoned  himself  to 
the  joy  of  real  communication  of  his  whole  self, 
throwing  aside  all  the  servile  restraints  and  reser- 
vations of  mere  prudence — prudence  which  the 
dangerous  times  of  the  civil  wars  might  seem  to 
make  more  than  ordinarily  expedient.  Seated 
with  such  a  companion,  Montaigne  surprised  him- 
self by  his  own  energy  of  speech,  his  vivacity, 
his  happy  sallies.  He  found  better  things  than  he 
sought.  His  mind  became  the  plaything  of  for- 
tune— fortune  the  unexpected,  the  incalculable : 
"  the  occasion,  the  company,  the  agitation  of  my 
own  voice,  draw  forth  from  my  mind  more  than 
I  find  when  I  sound  it  and  employ  it  by  myself." 
In  comparison  with  such  conversation,  which 
217 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

seemed  to  him  the  most  fruitful  and  natural  exer- 
cise of  the  mind,  he  perceived  that  the  study  of 
books  is  a  languishing  and  feeble  motion.  If  he 
were  compelled  to  choose,  he  would  rather  lose 
his  sight  than  his  hearing  and  power  of  speech. 
He  liked  best  to  encounter  a  rude  and  vigorous 
j ouster,  who  would  press  upon  his  flanks  and  prick 
him  right  and  left;  "perfect  agreement  in  con- 
versation is  of  all  things  the  most  tiresome". 
Knowing  the  diversity  that  there  is  in  the  minds 
of  men,  he  was  astonished  by  no  proposition,  how- 
ever novel,  nor  hurt  by  any  confession  of  faith, 
how  widely  soever  it  might  differ  from  his  own. 
He  would  listen  with  tolerance  to  the  most  ex- 
travagant conceits,  or  the  flightiest  tales  of  won- 
der, and  inwardly  ask  why  he  should  discredit  or 
deny  them — "  Que  sgay-jcf'  It  was  not  that  he 
was  indifferent  to  truth,  but  that  he  thought  it  a 
cowardly  and  ill  policy  to  close  any  of  the  avenues 
which  might  by  any  chance  lead  to  truth.  He 
exposed  his  own  opinions  gladly  to  adverse  criti- 
cism— the  rougher  and  bolder  such  criticism  the 
better.  Montaigne  was  prouder  to  acknowledge 
bravely  that  he  had  been  worsted  in  argument 
than  to  snatch  a  victory  by  mere  strategy  and 
tactics.  To  be  so  disinterested  was  his  best 
homage  to  reality,  to  substance  and  not  to  show : 
"  I  joyously  entertain  and  caress  truth  in  what- 
ever quarter  I  find  it,  cheerfully  surrender  myself 
218 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

to  it,  and  hold  forth  my  conquered  arms  to  it  when 
from  afar  ofT  I  see  it  approach."  What  offended 
him  most  in  discussion  was  a  neglect  of  what  he 
styles  "  order" — the  rational  form  of  argument : 
"  When  the  disputation  is  irregular  and  troubled, 
I  leave  the  thing  itself,  and  cling  to  the  form  with 
anger  and  indiscretion,  flinging  myself  into  a 
headstrong,  malicious,  imperious  way  of  debate, 
for  which  I  am  afterwards  obliged  to  blush." 
But  then  to  deal  fairly  with  a  fool  is  not  an  easy 
matter.  Nor  was  it  an  artificial,  scholastic  way 
of  handling  a  subject  that  Montaigne  required; 
it  was  rather  the  free,  natural  way  of  good  sense ; 
attention  to  the  "  knot,"  as  he  would  call  it,  of 
the  question  considered,  a  sure  and  dexterous 
process  of  untying  it,  clear  vision,  good  humour, 
due  regard  for  the  arguments  of  an  opponent ;  in 
a  word,  reasonableness  and  not  the  methodic  lines 
of  circumvallation  of  formal  logic :  "  I  had 
rather  a  son  of  mine  should  learn  to  speak  in  a 
tavern  than  in  the  schools  of  prating."  "  Take  a 
master  of  arts,"  he  says,  "  strip  him  of  his  gown, 
his  hood,  and  his  Latin,  let  him  not  batter  our 
ears  with  Aristotle  pure  and  crude,  and  you 
would  take  him  for  one  of  ourselves,  or  worse." 
And  yet,  after  all,  why  should  we  be  so  impatient 
with  another  man's  way  of  giving  his  notions  a 
shape,  even  if  he  be  a  logical  or  a  learned  fool? 
How  often  we  are  fools  ourselves !  We  must  live 
219 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

among  the  living,  and  "  let  the  river  run  under 
the  bridge"  without  our  care,  or  at  least  without 
our  interference.  A  hundred  times  a  day  we 
mock  ourselves  in  mocking  our  neighbour.  To 
know  this  is  perhaps  our  chief  advantage  over  a 
self-complacent,  obstinate,  zealous  fool,  all  aglow 
with  his  folly;  and  a  considerable  advantage  it 
must  be — "  Is  there  any  creature  so  assured,  re- 
solved, disdainful,  contemplative,  grave,  and  seri- 
ous as  an  ass?" 

Montaigne's  house  was  always  open.  Some- 
times it  was  a  friend  that  visited  him,  like 
Jacques  Pelletier — poet,  grammarian,  mathema- 
tician— who  in  1572  or  1573  was  invited  to  ac- 
cept the  headship  of  the  College  of  Guyenne,  in 
which  Montaigne  preserved  his  old  friendly  in- 
terest. It  was  Pelletier  who  instructed  his  host 
in  the  properties  of  the  asymptote,  which  continu- 
ally approaches  a  curve  and  never  meets  it,  a  fact 
demonstrable  by  reason  which  yet,  Montaigne 
thought,  subverts  the  truths  of  experience.  And 
he  it  was  who  gave  Montaigne  a  certain  precious 
amulet  of  gold,  whereon  were  graven  some  celes- 
tial figures,  virtuous  against  sunstroke,  but  which 
the  new  owner,  playing  benevolently  on  the  im- 
agination of  a  newly-wedded  acquaintance,  put 
to  unanticipated  uses.  The  chateau  lay  open  not 
to  friends  only  but  to  foes,  and  this  was  part  of 
what  its  master,  with  his  psychological  instinct, 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

held  to  be  a  prudent  policy.  "  Our  desires  arc 
augmented  by  difficulty"  ;  therefore  no  marauder 
should  be  tempted  to  rob  him  of  his  worldly 
goods  by  the  ambition  of  achieving  a  feat  in  the 
fine  art  of  looting.  Wandering  bands  of  soldiers 
in  a  disturbed  district  during  the  civil  wars  might 
have  thought  it  a  gallant  thing  to  capture  a 
Catholic  gentleman's  chateau  if  he  had  defended 
it ;   and  so  Montaigne  would  have  no  defence. 

"  I  make  their  conquest  of  my  house  dastardly  and 
treacherous ;  it  is  never  shut  to  any  one  that  knocks ;  it 
has  no  other  provision  but  a  porter,  of  ancient  custom  and 
ceremony,  who  does  not  so  much  serve  to  defend  my  gate 
as  to  oflfer  it  with  more  decorum  and  grace ;  I  have  no 
other  guard  nor  sentinel  than  what  the  stars  provide  me 
with.  A  gentleman  wrongs  himself  in  making  a  show  of 
defence,  when  he  cannot  thoroughly  defend  himself.  .  .  . 
This  is  my  retreat  wherein  to  rest  me  from  the  wars.  I 
endeavour  to  withdraw  this  corner  from  the  public  tem- 
pest, as  I  do  another  corner  in  my  soul.  Our  war  may 
change  its  forms,  may  multiply  and  diversify  itself  into 
new  parties ;  for  my  part,  I  stir  not.  Among  so  many 
houses  put  in  defence,  I  myself  alone  amongst  those  of  my 
rank,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  France,  have  trusted  merely  to 
heaven,  for  the  protection  of  mine,  and  have  never  removed 
plate,  deeds,  or  hangings.  I  would  neither  fear  nor  save 
myself  by  halves.  If  a  full  acknowledgment  can  gain  the 
Divine  favour,  it  will  remain  with  me  to  the  end;  if  not, 
I  have  continued  long  enough  to  make  my  continuance  re- 
markable, and  worthy  of  record.  How?  It  is  full  thirty 
years."  * 


*  Essays,  II,  15. 
221 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Montaigne's  policy  of  the  open  door,  so  long 
successful,  was  not  successful  to  the  end.  A  time 
came — at  the  close  of  his  mayoralty  of  Bordeaux 
— when  his  chateau  was  pillaged,  and  its  master, 
with  his  wife  and  daughter,  fearing  the  plague 
more  than  the  irregular  soldiery,  the  picorciirs, 
were  wanderers  without  a  home.  The  confident 
aspect  of  the  undefended  chateau  was  reflected  in 
the  confidence  of  Montaigne's  face,  and  on  more 
than  one  occasion,  if  we  are  to  believe  him, 
when  danger  threatened  he  was  saved  by  his 
frank  countenance  and  his  courageous  bearing. 
A  neighbour  had  planned  to  surprise  Montaigne's 
house;  he  professed  to  be  in  need  of  a  refuge 
from  pursuers;  the  gates  were  opened  to  him  as 
a  matter  of  course.  Presently  arrived  small  par- 
ties of  his  soldiers,  all  with  the  same  story  on 
their  lips.  Montaigne's  suspicions  were  aroused, 
but  he  resolved  to  go  through  with  his  courtesy 
and  to  trust  to  fortune.  The  horsemen  were  at 
the  gate,  their  leader  was  within  the  house; 
nothing  remained  to  be  done  except  to  execute  the 
plan  that  he  had  formed.  "  Often  he  has  said 
since  then,"  writes  Montaigne,  "  for  he  was  not 
afraid  to  tell  the  tale,  that  my  countenance  and 
my  frankness  had  snatched  the  treachery  out  of 
his  hands.  He  remounted  his  horse,  his  fol- 
lowers, who  had  their  eyes  upon  him,  to  see  what 
signal  he  might  give  them,  being  much  astonished 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

to  find  him  issue  forth  and  yield  up  his  advan- 
tage." * 

Montaigne  describes  his  house  as  situated  in  the 
midst  of  the  tumuU  and  trouble  of  the  civil  v^'ars ; 
his  province  was  always  the  first  in  arms,  and  the 
last  to  lay  them  down.  Guyenne  and  Gascony  were 
in  truth  a  great  wrestling-ground  for  the  rival 
factions,  and  they  swayed  incalculably  hither  and 
thither  in  victory  or  defeat.  The  greater  num- 
ber of  Montaigne's  neighbours  were  Protestant 
gentlemen,  and  he  was  known  to  be  a  Catholic 
and  a  royalist.  He  was  neither  a  sceptic  without 
political  convictions,  nor  a  man  so  indifferent  and 
egoistic  that  he  could  not  take  a  side.  It  would 
have  been  pleasant,  certainly,  to  do  like  the  pru- 
dent old  woman  and  carry  one  candle  to  St. 
Michael  and  another  to  the  dragon.  Montaigne 
would  follow  the  better  party  even  to  the  fire ;  but, 
if  possible,  would  omit  that  last  disagreeable  in- 
cident; he  would  be  swallowed  up  in  the  public 
ruin ;  but,  should  there  be  no  need  of  this,  would 
be  well  pleased  if  fortune  saved  him;  and  as 
far  as  duty  gave  him  leave,  he  did  not  neglect 
self-conservation.  If  he  could  escape  from  a 
beating  by  creeping  under  a  calfskin,  he  was  not, 
he  confesses,  the  man  to  shrink  from  such  a 
refuge.    These  are  not  heroic  utterances ;   unless, 

*  Essays,  III,  12. 
223 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

indeed,  it  be  heroic  to  confess  that  one  is  not  a 
hero.  But,  while  in  the  case  of  a  war  in  other 
lands  it  might  be  possible  to  remain  indifferent, 
Montaigne  felt  than  in  a  civil  war  it  would  have 
been  treason  merely  to  stand  aside  and  look  on. 
He  did  not  hesitate  to  speak  and  to  act  on  behalf 
of  what  he  regarded  as  the  better  cause.  Only 
he  would  endeavour  to  hold  his  own  convictions 
and  to  act  on  their  behalf  in  the  spirit  of  modera- 
tion, of  reasonableness,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  regard  his  opponents  in  the  temper  of  equity. 
He  was  sufficiently  attached  to  his  own  party  by 
the  bond  of  reason,  and  therefore  did  not  need 
the  bondage  of  wrath  and  hatred.  He  could 
commend  a  Huguenot  poet,  or  the  style,  though 
not  the  matter,  of  a  Huguenot  pamphlet,  to  do 
which  was  almost  a  proof  of  heresy.  He  could 
celebrate  in  the  same  paragraph  the  courage  and 
constancy  of  the  Constable  de  Montmorenci,  and 
the  unfailing  goodness,  sweetness  of  manners, 
and  "  conscientious  facility"  of  the  Protestant 
leader.  La  None.  He  could,  when  the  right  time 
came,  centre  all  his  hopes  and  desires  for  France 
— poor  vessel  staggering  under  the  tempest — 
upon  the  person  of  Henri  of  Navarre.  He  de- 
tested the  spirit  which  had  "  filled  fraternal  hearts 
with  parricidal  hatreds",  the  terrible  code  of 
morals  which  made  cruelty  a  virtue  and  violence 
a  form  of  sacred  justice.  The  ancient  religion 
224 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

and  government  of  the  kingdom  ought  assuredly 
to  be  maintained,  but  a  Catholic  and  a  royalist 
should  remember  that  those  arrayed  against  him 
were  Frenchmen — and  that  they  were  men.  Re- 
ligion, which  should  form  men  to  its  own  high 
ends,  had  been  shaped  anew  by  them  to  their  own 
worst  designs: 

"  They  who  have  taken  it  on  the  left  hand,  they  who 
have  taken  it  on  the  right,  they  who  call  it  black,  they  who 
call  it  white,  alike  employ  it  in  their  violent  and  ambitious 
enterprises,  and  conduct  themselves  in  relation  to  it  with 
a  progress  so  alike  in  riot  and  injustice  that  they  render 
the  diversity  they  pretend  in  their  opinions,  in  a  matter  on 
which  the  conduct  and  law  of  our  life  depend,  doubtful  and 
almost  incredible ;  could  one  see  morals  more  akin,  more 
absolutely  identical,  issue  from  one  and  the  same  school 
and  discipline?  See  the  horrible  impudence  with  which 
we  toss  divine  reasons  to  and  fro,  and  how  irreligiously 
we  have  both  rejected  and  retaken  them  according  as  for- 
tune has  shifted  our  places  in  these  public  storms."  * 

Montaigne  had  seen  the  sufferings  of  the 
peasantry — feet  roasted  upon  gridirons,  fingers 
crushed  under  the  pistol-cocks,  bloody  eyes 
squeezed  out  by  cords — and  he  had  marvelled  at 
their  endurance.  "  A  monstrous  war !"  he  cries ; 
"...  all  discipline  flies  it ;  it  comes  to  cure  sedi- 
tion, and  is  itself  full  of  the  same  evil ;  would 
chastise  disobedience  and  is  itself  the  example; 
and,  employed  for  the  defence  of  the  laws,  is  itself 

*  Essays,  II,  12. 
IS  225 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

a  rebel  to  its  own."     At  such  a  time  to  despair 
would  have  been  easy. 

Nor  had  his  own  spirit  of  moderation  given 
Montaigne  immunity  from  suffering;  rather,  in 
some  respects,  it  had  enhanced  the  difficulties  and 
dangers  of  his  position :  "  I  was  spoiled  on  all 
hands;  to  the  Ghibelline  I  was  a  Guelph;  to  the 
Guelph,  a  Ghibelline."  Formal  accusations  were 
not  laid  against  him;  no  foundation  existed  for 
these;  but  mute  suspicions  crept  about  him  in 
underhand  ways,  and  it  was  his  way  not  to  evade 
these,  not  to  justify  or  explain  himself,  but  to 
sit  silent,  or  sometimes  even  ironically  to  assert 
his  guilt.  A  thousand  times  as  he  lay  down  at 
night  to  sleep,  he  questioned  whether  he  would 
ever  see  the  morning.  One  should  live  among 
one's  neighbours  by  right,  but  he  felt  that  he 
lived  by  sufferance  or  by  favour.  His  losses 
might  be  endured,  but  the  offence  of  wanton  out- 
rages was  hard  to  bear  with  equanimity.  Now 
and  again  a  spasm  of  fear  seized  him  as  to  the 
future  of  himself  and  his  household,  and  there 
was  nothing  that  he  feared  so  much  as  fear  itself. 
And  yet  when  he  looked  back  at  the  worst  of  these 
years  he  felt  almost  ashamed  to  confess  how 
much  repose  and  tranquillity  were  his  amid  the 
ruin  of  his  country.  Custom  itself  benumbed  the 
sense  of  many  evils.  His  health  had  been  good, 
and  how  few  of  the  blessings  of  life  are  equal  to 
226 


LIFE    IN    THE    CHATEAU 

health !  There  was  a  kind  of  bitter  comfort  in 
reflecting'  that  if  France  had  fallen,  the  fall  was 
from  no  great  height;  the  state  of  society  even 
before  the  civil  wars  had  not  been  one  of  Utopian 
happiness.  He  tried  to  assure  himself  that  even 
when  the  contexture  of  society  seems  desperately 
rent,  somehow  it  still  holds  together;  that  the 
shuffling  and  jostling  of  atoms  somehovv'  results 
in  a  readjustment;  that  under  all  disorder  lies 
a  law  of  order  mysteriously  at  work.  It  was  not 
a  period  of  strange  alteration  for  France  alone; 
other  states  were  also  menaced  by  some  vast 
process  of  change.  "  Everything  about  us 
crumbles" ;  but  "  all  that  totters  does  not  fall" ; 
or  if  everything  falls,  nothing  is  felt  to  fall. 
"  The  contexture  of  so  great  a  body  holds  by 
more  nails  than  one;  it  holds  even  by  its  an- 
tiquity, like  old  buildings,  whose  base  has  been 
worn  away  by  time,  without  mortar  or  coating, 
which  yet  support  themselves  by  their  own 
weight."  The  troubles  of  the  time  helped  above 
all  to  make  Montaigne  seek  for  strength  not  in 
things  around  him,  not  in  the  future,  but  in  the 
citadel  of  his  own  soul.  We  so  often  run  after 
airy  and  distant  hopes ;  we  so  seldom  arrive  at 
ourselves;  and  if  we  arrive  at  ourselves  it  is 
sometimes  late  in  the  day,  when  we  are  tired 
and  faint.  He  could  think  with  satisfaction  that 
it  was  his  fortune  to  live  in  an  age  which  at  least 
227 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

was  not  idle,  languishing,  or  effeminate.  And 
for  a  spectator  there  was  a  strange  interest — like 
that  of  one  who  watches  some  portentous  tragedy 
upon  the  stage — in  assisting  at  the  agony  of  an 
ancient  kingdom.  "  Good  historians  fly  from 
calm  narration,  as  from  stagnant  water  and  a 
dead  sea,  to  return  to  seditions  and  wars,  to  which 
they  know  that  we  summon  them."  Yes — Mon- 
taigne, the  artist,  could  not  but  feel  a  certain 
fascination  in  the  unfolding  of  a  drama,  where 
great  actors  played  their  parts  and  even  the  simple 
clowns  might  deserve  applause.  Montaigne,  the 
student  of  human  nature,  had  an  ample  field  of 
observation,  where  good  and  evil  passions  were 
naked  to  his  view,  and  the  behaviour  of  that  sin- 
gular creature,  man,  could  be  studied  under  the 
most  varying  conditions  and  in  the  testing  crises 
of  events. 


228 


CHAPTER   VIII 

WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

In  the  interval  between  1571,  the  date  of  Mon- 
taigne's withdrawal  to  "the  bosom  of  the  Muses", 
and  1580,  the  date  of  publication,  the  first  two 
books  of  the  Essays  were  written.  They  were  the 
leisurely  accumulation  or  growth  of  nine  years, 
embodying  the  wisdom  of  mature  manhood.  It 
is  probable  that  they  had  their  origin  in  the 
writer's  custom  of  annotating  certain  books  which 
he  had  read  with  special  attention,  of  annotating 
them  and  adding  at  the  close  a  brief  estimate  of 
the  work  or  of  the  merits  and  defects  of  the 
author.  The  satisfaction  which  he  felt  in  seeing 
his  own  thought  fixed  in  written  words,  so  pre- 
served from  the  fluctuations  of  his  feelings  and 
from  the  treachery  of  his  memory,  led  him  on 
to  make  essays  of  his  judgment,  essays  of  his 
"  natural  faculties",  on  other  topics  which  came 
before  him  from  time  to  time.  At  first  Mon- 
taigne may  have  had  no  design  of  publication  in 
view ;  the  jottings  from  books  and  the  records  of 
his  own  ideas  may  have  been  regarded  only  as 
private  memoranda ;  but  a  writer  of  genius,  who 
can  express  himself  on  hardly  any  subject  without 
229 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

originalit};'  of  conception  and  of  manner  and  who 
has  a  dehght  in  all  the  inventions  of  literary 
style,  is  before  very  long  caught  in  the  web  which 
he  himself  has  spun.  Gradually  ]\Iontaigne 
found  himself  entangled  in  his  own  delight,  and 
could  not  choose  to  escape  from  it.  The  writer 
of  disconnected  memoranda  was  transformed  into 
an  author.  For  a  time  he  was  his  own  public ;  but 
as  he  contemplated  what  la}^  before  him,  he  per- 
ceived that  it  had  in  it  an  appeal  for  other  minds, 
and  he  became  one  of  a  larger  public  with  whom 
the  most  sociable  of  writers  could  now  enjoy  an 
endless  conversation,  while  conversing  with  him- 
self. 

The  Essays  themselves  give  various  accounts 
of  the  motives  which  brought  them  into  being, 
and  probably  in  each  account  there  is  a  fragment 
of  the  entire  truth.  In  his  retirement  there  were 
times  when  Montaigne  suffered  from  the  tedium 
of  solitude ;  a  "  melancholic  humour",  very  much 
out  of  accord  with  his  natural  complexion,  threat- 
ened to  lay  hold  upon  him ;  he  needed  some  occu- 
pation to  banish  his  ennui,  and  he  took  up  his 
pen  and  found  that  he  was  happily  astir.  But  to 
write  Avas  not  only  a  stimulus ;  it  was  also  a  con- 
trol. A  rich  soil  that  lies  idle  produces  all  manner 
of  troublesome  weeds ;  so  it  is  with  the  mind, 
which  if  not  occupied  and  restrained  runs  into 
every  kind  of  extravagances  in  the  vague  field  of 
230 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

the  imagination.  When  he  retired  to  his  own 
house,  he  tells  us,  intending,  as  far  as  might  be, 
to  pass  in  repose  the  short  remainder  of  his  hfe, 
he  supposed  that  he  could  do  himself  no  better 
service  than  to  let  his  mind  entertain  itself,  as  it 
should  please,  in  entire  idleness.  He  hoped  that 
years  had  tamed  his  spirit,  and  brought  it  within 
the  bounds  of  reason.  But  it  proved  otherwise. 
Like  a  horse  broken  loose  from  the  rider,  his  mind 
flung  up  its  heels  and  started  on  an  extravagant 
career.  "  It  gives  birth  to  so  many  chimeras  and 
fantastic  monsters,  one  upon  another,  without 
order  or  design,  that  to  contemplate  at  my  ease 
their  ineptitude  and  strangeness  I  have  begun 
to  set  them  down  in  a  roll,  hoping  with  time  to 
make  my  mind  ashamed  of  itself."  There  was 
never  any  very  acute  shame  in  Montaigne's  con- 
templation of  his  chimeras,  for  he  did  not  aspire 
to  be  an  angel  or  a  Cato ;  he  was  only,  he  would 
reflect,  a  specimen  of  the  average  human  being, 
with  certain  advantages  arising  from  the  fact  that 
he  recognised  his  monsters  as  fantastic;  and  it 
was  not  his  business  to  play  the  weeping  philoso- 
pher of  humanity,  when  it  was  more  agreeable 
and  perhaps  more  effective  to  smile.  But,  in 
truth,  he  did  not  at  first  take  himself  for  the 
central  subject  of  his  study.  On  whatever  matter 
happened  to  interest  him  he  made  the  trial  of  his 
judgment,  and  every  matter  proved  fertile;  a  fly 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

would  serve  as  well  as  a  philosopher  or  an  envoy 
of  state.  To  be  started  on  a  train  of  meditation 
vi^as  all  that  he  required — "  I  take  the  first  argu- 
ment that  fortune  offers  me;  they  are  all  equally 
good  for  me ;  I  never  design  to  treat  them  in  their 
totality,  for  I  never  see  the  whole  of  anything, 
nor  do  those  see  it  who  promise  to  show  it  to  us. 
Of  a  hundred  members  and  faces  which  each 
thing  has,  I  take  one,  sometimes  to  touch  it  only 
lightly  or  to  graze  the  surface,  and  sometimes  to 
pinch  it  to  the  bone;  I  give  a  stab  not  as  wide 
but  as  deep  as  I  can,  and  in  general  I  love  to  seize 
things  by  some  unwonted  lustre."  The  judgment 
was  an  instrument  which  had  always  its  uses.  If 
the  subject  was  one  which  he  did  not  understand, 
he  used  his  judgment  to  sound  the  depth  of  the 
ford,  and  finding  it  too  deep  for  one  of  his  stature, 
he  kept  to  the  bank.  If  the  subject  was  frivolous, 
the  judgment  was  an  instrument  which  might  give 
it  substance  and  support.  If  the  subject  was  a 
noble  one,  already  trodden  and  trampled  into  a 
thousand  paths,  the  judgment  had  still  its  oppor- 
tunity in  discovering  the  best  of  all  those  paths. 

The  master  faculty  worked  in  mysterious  ways ; 
not  always  deliberately;  often  spontaneously, 
oracularly,  suddenly,  carrying  one  away,  per- 
suading or  dissuading,  speaking  with  authority, 
not  balancing  and  weighing,  as  the  judgment 
ordinarily  does,  but  presenting  itself  like  some 
232 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

unexpected  fiat  of  the  will.  What  else  but  this 
was  the  demon  of  Socrates?  And  have  we  not, 
each  of  us,  our  demon?  Montaigne's  best 
thoughts  came  to  him  when  he  seemed  to  seek 
them  least;  and,  to  his  grief,  they  often  vanished 
as  quickly — gifts  of  the  gods,  but  snatched  away 
by  some  invisible  harpies.  Such  thoughts  offered 
themselves  as  he  lay  in  bed,  or  sat  at  table,  or  on 
horseback — especially  on  horseback,  for  the  stir 
in  the  blood  somehow  set  his  mind  astir  and  made 
it  quick  and  apprehensive.  But  if  they  were  not 
captured  and  secured  on  the  moment,  only  a  vain 
image  remained  with  him,  like  the  shadow  of  a 
lost  dream  which  haunts  us  after  waking. 

The  subjects  which  set  him  thinking  as  he  rode 
through  the  country  or  sat  in  his  library  might  be 
remote  from  Michel  de  Montaigne;  yet  somehow 
Michel  de  Montaigne  almost  always  consciously 
or  unconsciously  played  his  part  in  the  meditation. 
Even  on  a  wholly  detached  theme  it  was  his  own 
judgment  which  was  defining  itself.  He  could  not 
think  or  write  like  a  pedant  whose  wisdom  lies  all 
on  his  shelves  and  not  in  his  own  consciousness, 
his  own  experience.  Good  and  evil,  he  held, 
reside  not  so  much  in  things  themselves  as  in 
our  opinion  of  things,  the  way  we  regard  them, 
the  way  we  deal  with  them;  and  therefore  if  he 
sought  for  wisdom  and  knowledge,  he  must  to  a 
great  extent  seek  it  in  himself,  in  the  form  im- 
233 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

posed  on  things  by  his  own  mind,  in  his  opinions, 
in  his  fecHngs,  in  his  habits  of  Hving,  even  in  his 
trivial  pecuHarities,  for  these  might  have  some 
significance  which  he  did  not  wholly  comprehend, 
and  more  might  be  implied  by  them  than  appeared 
upon  the  surface.  Thus,  without  at  first  enter- 
taining such  a  design,  he  was  drawing,  pencil- 
stroke  by  pencil-stroke,  a  portrait  of  himself. 
The  features  of  a  man  began  to  look  out  upon 
him  from  the  drawing-board,  and  the  features 
were  his  own.  A  new  motive  and  a  new  pleasure 
entered  into  Montaigne's  work;  he  would  com- 
plete by  a  multitude  of  touches  seemingly  casual 
yet  nicely  calculated,  this  work  of  art,  and  it 
should  remain  as  a  memorial  of  him  with  his 
friends.  A  foolish  project!  Pascal  afterwards 
pronounced  it ;  a  foolish  project  to  occupy  one's 
self  with  this  hateful  thing,  the  ego.  But  Mon- 
taigne, with  easier  wisdom,  maintained  that  if  he 
was  playing  the  fool,  at  least  it  was  at  his  own 
expense ;  his  folly  would  die  with  him  and  would 
create  no  train  of  evil  consequences.  And  he  did 
not,  in  truth,  regard  the  project  as  foolish.  The 
attainment  of  self-knowledge  was  no  fool's  task, 
but  an  arduous  undertaking  for  those  who  would 
be  wise.  "  It  is  a  thorny  enterprise,  and  more  so 
than  it  seems,  to  follow  a  pace  so  vagabond  as 
that  of  the  soul,  to  penetrate  the  dark  profundities 
of  its  internal  windings,  to  choose  and  lay  hold  of 
234 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

so  man}'  little  modes  of  its  motions ;  it  is  a  new 
and  extraordinary  amusement  which  withdraws 
ns  from  the  common  occupations  of  the  world; 
yes,  and  from  those  most  recommended.  It  is 
now  many  years  since  I  have  had  no  aim  for  my 
thoughts  save  myself,  since  I  have  supervised  and 
studied  only  myself;  and  if  I  study  aught  else  it 
is  straightway  to  lay  it  upon,  or,  to  speak  more 
accurately,  wathin  myself.  And  I  do  not  think/ 
I  err,  if,  as  is  done  in  other  sciences  incomparably 
less  profitable,  I  communicate  what  I  have  learnt  " 
in  this,  though  I  am  ill  satisfied  with  the  progress 
I  have  made."  If  Montaigne's  way  of  self-study 
were  to  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  a  method, 
— a  word  inappropriate  enough  with  such  a 
writer — we  should  have  to  describe  it  as  the 
method  of  observation,  the  empirical,  or — shall 
we  sa}'? — the  experimental  method.  He  started 
wath  no  a  priori  assumptions,  theological  or  philo- 
sophical; he  did  not  systematise  his  results;  he 
made  no  attempt  even  to  unify  the  record  of  his 
thoughts  and  feelings  under  any  theoretical  con- 
ception of  himself;  he  was  content  to  set  down 
an  observation  here  and  another  observation 
there;  if  the  Llontaigne  of  to-day  differed  from 
the  Montaigne  of  yesterday,  he  recorded  the  pres- 
ent and  immediate  fact;  he  differed  from  him- 
self as  much  as  from  other  men;  he  was  one  of 
a  diverse  and  undnlant  species.  Yet  an  ideal  con- 
235 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

ception  of  himself  gradually  formed  itself  in  his 
mind;  a  unity  in  multiplicity  gradually  became 
apparent;  and  there  was  a  certain  artistic  pleas- 
ure in  giving  salience  to  those  traits  which  served 
best  to  illustrate  and  expound  this,  his  own  ideal 
of  Montaigne.  And  why  should  he  not  speak  of 
himself?  The  rule  to  be  silent  with  respect  to 
one's  self  is  only  a  bridle  for  calves!  Neither  the 
saints,  who  speak  of  themselves  so  loftily,  nor 
the  philosophers,  nor  the  theologians  tolerate  such 
a  curb. 

Montaigne  was  not  a  saint;  nor  did  he  claim 
for  himself  the  title  of  philosopher.  He  pro- 
fessed himself  no  more  than  the  average  man. 
And  precisely  for  this  reason  he  had  the  better 
right  to  be  communicative  about  himself ;  through 
his  representation  of  an  average  man — neither  a 
saint  nor  a  beast — he  was  really  exhibiting  hu- 
manity itself;  "each  man  carries  in  his  own 
person  the  entire  form  of  the  condition  of  the 
race".  He  offered  himself  to  the  world,  if  the 
world  chose  to  take  him  so,  as  a  specimen  of  the 
genus  homo,  as  one  of  themselves.  To  his  friends 
he  offered  the  portrait  of  Michel  de  Montaigne. 
He  was  not  erecting  the  statue  of  an  illustrious 
individual  in  the  great  square  of  a  city,  in  a 
church,  or  any  public  place.  It  was  for  the  corner 
of  a  library,  to  entertain  a  neighbour,  a  kinsman, 
a  friend.  There  was  not  so  much  of  good  in 
236 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

him  that  he  could  not  tell  it  without  blushing. 
Here,  as  the  author  in  his  opening  words  informs 
the  reader,  his  end  was  private  and  domestic; 
when  his  friends  had  lost  him,  they  might  find 
him  here,  his  humours  and  conditions,  his  few 
merits  and  his  many  defects.  Had  he  lived  among 
those  nations  which  dwell  under  the  sweet  liberty 
of  the  primitive  laws  of  nature,  he  would  gladly 
have  painted  his  portrait  at  full  length  and  with- 
out a  rag  of  clothing.  All  the  worth  of  his  book 
lay  in  the  fact  that  it  was  "  a  book  of  good 
faith".  And  yet  the  other  thought,  that  in  painting 
himself  he  was  painting  the  human  creature,  and 
not  merely  an  individual,  was  always  in  the 
"  back-shop"  of  Montaigne's  mind.  He  could 
not  construct  a  foursquare  body  of  philosophy; 
he  was  not  a  system-maker  or  system-monger; 
yet  one  thing  he  might  give  as  his  gift  to  the 
world — some  scattered  notes  on  that  curious 
creature,  man,  as  seen  in  the  example  which  lay 
nearest  to  his  observations;  as  seen  in  himself. 

As  he  proceeded  with  his  task,  which  was  also 
his  recreation,  he  began  to  perceive  that  his  book 
was  reacting  upon  his  character.  He  did  not 
form  his  book  more  than  his  book  was  forming 
him.  After  all,  the  portrait  had  in  it  something 
of  an  ideal.  He  was  sometimes  hasty  and  intem- 
perate, but  here  he  was  giving  pledges  to  reason- 
ableness and  moderation.  He  was  often  tempted 
22>7 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

to  exclaim  "  All  or  nothing",  but  here  he  pleaded 
for  the  wisdom  of  the  mean,  the  "  juste  milicii\ 
He  sometimes  wearily  gave  over  the  search  for 
truth,  and  despaired  of  any  certitude,  but  here  he 
declared  that  the  world  is  a  school  of  inquisition ; 
to  enter  it  is  not  the  great  point,  but  to  run  the 
fairest  course;  the  chase  is  our  business,  our 
game;  we  are  inexcusable  if  we  conduct  the 
chase  carelessly  and  ill;  to  fail  in  capturing  the 
game  is  another  matter;  we  were  born  to  pursue 
the  quest  for  truth;  to  possess  it  belongs  to  a 
higher  power.  Thus  the  Essays  became  to  their 
author  in  some  measure  a  rule  of  conduct;  or,  if 
not  a  rule,  for  he  loved  to  live  in  the  freedom  of 
the  present  moment,  at  least  an  impulse  and  a 
guide.  Montaigne  had  become  through  them  in 
some  degree  the  director  of  his  own  conscience, 
his  own  Seneca,  and  also  his  own  gentle  and 
encouraging  counsellor  and  companion,  his  more 
intimate  Plutarch. 

Perhaps,  too,  his  book  would  prove  useful  to 
others.  Perhaps  from  among  those  who  had 
found  it  helpful  to  them  or  who  cared  for  the 
portrait  he  had  drawn,  he  might  win  a  friend. 
"  Oh !  a  friend" — the  cry  or  the  sigh  of  Mon- 
taigne in  the  text  of  1588  no  longer  appears  with 
the  same  directness  in  the  edition  published  after 
his  death.  He  thought  of  what  the  friendship  of 
La  Boetie  had  been  to  him  in  his  earlier  man- 
238 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

hood;  and  now  age,  with  its  stealing  step,  had 
crept  upon  him.  Friendship — sweeter  and  more 
necessary  than  the  elements  of  water  and  fire ! 
He  would  go  very  far  to  find  a  friend;  and  in- 
deed in  the  self-confessions  of  his  book  he  had 
already  gone  more  than  half  way.  Could  it  be 
that  a  bookseller's  shop  might  bring  him  the 
friend  he  sought?  We  know  that  Montaigne's 
hope  was  in  a  measure  fulfilled.  He  found,  in- 
deed, no  second  La  Boetie.  But  his  book  brought 
him  two  later  friends — the  enthusiastic  young 
lady  whom  he  adopted  as  his  spiritual  daughter, 
and  a  philosophic  disciple,  perhaps  a  little  of  the 
pedant,  yet  one  who  was  also  a  thinker;  and  no 
master  should  judge  too  severely  a  devoted 
famulus,  even  though  he  be  a  Wagner;  or,  what 
is  considerably  better  than  a  Wagner,  a  Pierre 
Charron. 

To  render  some  service  to  others — this  was 
assuredly  one  of  the  motives  which  impelled  and 
sustained  Montaigne  in  his  delightful  labours, 
egoist  though  he  sometimes  professed  himself. 
Did  he  exhibit  his  own  faults  or  defects?  Well, 
this  might  be  of  use  as  a  warning  to  others.  Did 
he  point  to  the  infirmities  of  the  intellect  of  man  ? 
This  should  touch  at  once  the  dogmatists  who 
would  forever  moor  in  some  oozy  haven  the  voy- 
aging spirit  of  man,  and  those  wild  speculators  who 
would  subvert  the  old  order  of  society  for  the 
239 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

sake  of  a  theory.  He  could  not  dazzle  men  with 
a  vision  of  great  hope,  as  Rabelais  had  done; 
then  it  was  the  morning,  and  now  the  noon  hung 
heavy  and  clouds  had  overcast  the  heavens.  But 
he  might  do  what  perhaps  was  needed  by  his 
time — he  could  plead  for  sanity.  The  future  of 
his  country  depended  on  the  presence  in  it  of  a 
group — possibly  an  enlarging  group — of  men  who 
were  sane,  who  could  play  the  part  of  reconcilers 
between  the  madness  of  extremes,  who  were  not 
blinded  by  authority  or  by  custom,  who  were  uni- 
versal questioners,  who  were  pliable  to  the  touch 
of  reality,  who  dared  to  doubt  as  well  as  to  be- 
lieve, who  took,  as  he  did,  the  balance  for  their 
emblem,  and  who  could  pause  to  weigh  things 
before  they  applied  themselves  to  action.  Of  zeal 
and  passion  there  was  enough ;  there  was  too 
much.  It  were  better  for  France  if  men  were 
less  zealous  if  only  they  were  more  sane. 

Trenchant  critic  of  the  vices  and  errors  of  his 
own  time  as  Montaigne  was,  he  did  not  declaim 
-in  the  manner  of  a  preacher.  His  tone  was  that 
of  conversation :  "  I  speak  to  paper  as  I  do  to  the 
first  person  I  meet."  But  what  a  conversation 
it  is !  how  rich  in  ideas !  how  vivid  and  opalescent 
in  expression!  And,  doubtless,  the  chief  motive 
for  continuing  to  write  endlessly,  whenever  the 
mood  came  upon  him,  was  the  delight  which  he 
felt  in  writing.  He  talks  in  his  easy,  engaging 
240 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

way  of  the  vanity  of  scribbling;  he  could  not 
spell,  forsooth;  he  never  knew  how  to  place  a 
comma  or  a  period;  this  scribbling  propensity 
was  only  the  idle  humour  of  a  very  idle  man. 
There  should  be  a  law  against  foolish  and  im- 
pertinent authors;  though  in  his  time,  indeed, 
doing  ill  was  so  common  that  to  do  what  was  only 
vain  and  useless  had  in  it  a  kind  of  commenda- 
tion. Such  was  Montaigne's  way  of  wearing  his 
wisdom  and  his  art  lightly,  to  all  appearance,  and 
so  insinuating  himself  into  his  reader's  good 
graces,  disarming  opposition  with  his  humour  of 
self-depreciation,  which  was  meant  to  deceive  no 
one.  But,  in  truth,  he  enjoyed,  as  much  as  any 
man  ever  did,  the  triumphs  of  a  great  virtuoso 
performing  upon  his  divine  instrument.  No  one 
felt  more  than  he  that  the  right  word,  the  word 
which  lives  with  a  strong  corporeal  life,  springs 
from  intensity  of  vision ;  that  style,  as  we  call  it, 
is  simply  the  body  of  thought,  and  that  nothing 
proper  to  us  is  either  wholly  corporeal  or  incor- 
poreal. If  his  Essays  were  praised,  it  ought  not 
to  be  for  their  language,  nor  yet  precisely  for 
their  matter,  but  for  the  form  impressed  upon  the 
matter  by  his  mind,  of  which  spiritual  form  the 
language  was  only  the  inevitable  consequence. 
And  therefore  he  was  in  the  highest  degree  curi- 
ous and  scrupulous  about  the  language  which  he 
would  not  wish  to  see  praised  by  any  one  apart 
i6  241 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

from  the  spiritual  form.  "  Cupid  is  a  felon  god" — 
"  Cupidon  est  nn  dicu  felon" :  the  earlier  text  had, 
as  the  epithet,  the  word  "  ambitieux" ;  Montaigne 
felt  his  way  a  little  nearer  to  his  meaning  and  wrote 
"  arrogant" .  No!  that  was  not  right,  and  he  re- 
placed it  with  "  mutin".  Finally  came,  as  he  be- 
lieved, the  inevitable,  unalterable  word — "  un  dieu 
felon"  *  Yet  there  is  no  appearance  of  curiosity, 
of  painful  research ;  there  is  not  a  touch  of  pre- 
ciosity in  his  style.  "  May  I  use  no  words,"  he 
writes,  "  but  those  which  are  current  in  the  Paris 
markets."  His  utterance  seems  to  be,  and  no 
doubt  in  great  part  it  was,  in  the  highest  degree 
spontaneous,  as  if  he  caught  his  prey  at  the  first 
bound.  Its  characteristic,  at  its  best,  lies  in  the 
union  of  strength  with  ease.  To  the  imagination 
it  is  a  perpetual  feast,  with  its  litheness  of  move- 
ment, its  iridescence,  its  ideas  incarnated  in  meta- 
phors, metaphors  often  homely  yet  each  a  fresh 
surprise;  always  original,  always  his  own.  And 
out  of  this  admirably  pedestrian  prose  rises  now 
and  again  a  lyric  cry  (all  the  more  poignant  and 
penetrating  because  to  be  a  poet  is  not  the  writer's 
trade)  ;  now  a  cry  of  indignation,  now  a  cry  of 
pity,  now  the  cry  of  memory  or  of  desire.     And 

*  Noted    from   the   Bordeaux   copy   of  Essays    (1588) 
with    autograph    corrections,    by    Gustave    Brunet :     Les 
Essais,  Legons  ineditcs,  p.  15. 
242 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

sometimes  the  page  is  one  of  a  superb  rhetoric, 
ample  and  sonorous,  Hke  that  in  the  Apology  for 
Raimond  de  Sehondc,  which  humihates  man  in 
presence  of  the  starry  heavens,  a  passage  that  may 
possibly  have  suggested  a  rapture  of  Hamlet, 
which  also  proves  to  what  sublime  uses  prose  may 
be  applied : 

"  Let  us  consider  then,  for  the  present,  man  alone,  without 
foreign  help,  armed  only  with  his  own  arms,  and  deprived  ^ 
of  the  Divine  grace  and  knowledge,  which  is  all  his  honour,  | 
his  strength,  and  the  foundation  of  his  being;    let  us  see 
what  posture  is  his  in  this  goodly  equipage.    Let  him  make 
me  understand  by  force  of  reasoning  on  what  foundation 
he  has  built  those  great  advantages  which  he  thinks  he 
has  over  other  creatures.     Who  has  persuaded   him  that 
the  admirable  movement  of  the  celestial  vault,  the  eternal 
light  of  those  luminaries    (flambeaux)   rolling  so  proudly 
over  his  head,  the  tremendous  movements  of  that  infinite 
sea,  were  established,  and  continue  so  many  ages,  for  his 
commodity   and   service?     Is   it   possible   to   imagine   any 
thing  so  ridiculous  as  this  miserable  and  wretched  creature, 
who  is  not  so  much  as  master  of  himself,  exposed  to  the 
injuries  of  all  things,  and  who  yet  names  himself  master  ^ 
and  emperor  of  the  universe,   of  which   it   is   not   in  his  | 
power  to  know  the  least  part,  much  less  to  command  it?  ' 
And  this  privilege  which  he  attributes  to  himself  of  being 
the  only  creature  in  this  vast  fabric  who  has  the  capacity 
to  know  its  beauty  and  all  its  chambers,  the  only  creature 
who  can  render  thanks  to  the  architect,  and  keep  account 
of   the   revenues   and   outgoings    of    the    world — who    has 
sealed  him  this  privilege?     Let  him   show   us  his  letters 
patent  for  this  great  and  noble  charge." 


No  writer  is  at  once  so  translatable  and  so 
itai^ 
243 


untranslatable  as   Montaigne.     After  much  has 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

been  lost  in  the  rendering,  so  much  remains  that 
almost  any  version  seems  full  and  sufficient.  But 
compare  it  with  the  original,  and  it  will  appear 
that  the  best  translation  is  indeed  the  wrong  side 
of  the  tapestry;  the  colour  of  the  original  is  en- 
feebled; the  concentrated  force  of  phrases,  when 
Montaigne  gives  one  of  his  swift,  deep  stabs, 
has  to  be  expanded  and  attenuated ;  the  incessant 
imagery  has  often  to  be  surrendered;  only  its 
significance  and  not  the  visible  aspect  and  gesture 
can  be  brought  over  into  another  language  than 
that  of  the  writer. 

Montaigne  had  not  the  happy  self-satisfaction 
of  those  authors  who  sun  themselves  in  the  per- 
fection of  their  own  work.  He  found  what  he 
had  written  "  excusable"  in  view  of  things  that 
were  worse ;  but  he  saw,  beyond  his  own  achieve- 
ment, the  unattainable  beauty ;  "  I  have  always 
an  idea  in  my  soul,  and  a  certain  troubled  image, 
which  presents  me  as  in  a  dream  some  better 
form  than  I  have  made  to  serve  my  needs;  but 
I  cannot  lay  hold  of  it  nor  work  it  out;  and  even 
that  idea  itself  attains  only  to  mediocrity."  The 
productions  of  the  great  and  rich  souls  of  former 
times  were  far  beyond  the  utmost  bounds  of  his 
imagination  or  his  desire;  "their  writings" — 
and  we  cannot  doubt  that  he  speaks  in  all  sin- 
cerity— "  not  only  satisfy  and  fill  me,  but  they 
astound  me  and  ravish  me  with  admiration."  To 
244 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

such  beauty  as  theirs  he  did  not  dare  even  to 
aspire.  He  could  not  anticipate  what  the  fortune 
of  his  book  might  be ;  perhaps  the  work  was  bet- 
ter than  the  workman.  Sometimes  he  placed  the 
Essays  high  in  his  esteem,  and  then  again  their 
value  seemed  to  fall,  and  he  looked  at  them  with 
a  discouraged  gaze.  He  wrote,  as  he  sometimes 
believed,  only  for  a  few  men  and  those  of  a  few 
years.  Had  he  hoped  for  distant  fame,  he  should 
have  written  in  a  language  less  subject  to  altera- 
tion than  his  own.  French  seemed  to  slip 
through  his  fingers  every  day;  during  his  own 
lifetime,  he  thought,  it  had  changed  to  the  ex- 
tent of  one-half.  As  for  the  glory  of  authorship, 
in  his  own  Gascony,  they  looked  upon  it  as  a 
drollery  that  Michel  de  Montaigne  should  be  seen 
in  print.  Farther  off  things  were  somewhat  bet- 
ter indeed — "  I  buy  printers  in  Guyenne ;  else- 
where they  buy  me."  But  whatever  might  be  the 
value  of  contemporary  praise,  he  tried  to  assure 
himself  that  posthumous  praise,  given  to  him 
either  as  a  man  or  as  an  author,  was  of  far  less 
account.  And  yet  he  thought  that  a  man  might 
rejoice  in  the  strength  and  the  beauty  of  his  spirit- 
ual offspring  with  even  a  finer  joy  than  in  the 
sons  and  daughters  begotten  of  his  body.  Of 
such  offspring  the  single  parent  is  both  father  and 
mother;  they  have  no  beauty  or  grace  of  their 
own  which  is  not  derived  from  him.  Montaigne 
245 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

would  not  say  but  that  he  might  rather  choose 
to  be  the  father  of  a  very  beautiful  child  through 
his  commerce  with  the  Muse  than  of  one  born  to 
him  by  his  wife.  He  doubted  much  that  Phidias 
would  have  been  as  anxious  for  the  preservation 
of  a  living  boy  or  girl  of  his  own  as  of  some 
admirable  statue  which  with  long  labour  and 
study  he  had  fashioned  to  perfection.  The  off- 
spring of  the  soul,  as  Plato  held,  are  the  immortal 
children.  Such  words  of  Montaigne  are  not  to 
be  taken  as  exhibiting  any  lack  of  paternal  tender- 
ness, but  rather  as  evidencing  his  enthusiasm  for 
artistic  beauty. 

The  essays  are,  as  is  natural,  of  very  unequal 
merit.  Some  are  mere  notes  on  subjects  which 
have  little  or  no  relation  to  life  and  character. 
If  the  essays  appropriated  by  the  servant-man, 
who  thought  he  had  obtained  a  treasure  in  his 
master's  manuscripts,  were  of  a  kind  like  unto 
that  on  Thumbs  or  that  on  Posting,  we  can  bear 
our  loss  with  equanimity.  Although  a  fly  might 
be  enough  to  set  Montaigne's  mind  in  motion,  he 
is  at  his  best  only  when  he  deals  with  some  serious 
matter  of  human  life  or  some  of  the  great  powers 
or  the  infirmities  of  human  nature.  We  cannot, 
indeed,  found  our  anticipations  respecting  the 
interest  of  an  essay  on  the  title  at  its  head.  That 
on  Coaches  contains  a  majestic  description  of  the 
pomps  of  ancient  Rome  and  an  eloquent  denun- 
246 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

ciation  of  the  perfidies  of  the  conquerors  of  the 
New  World;  when  it  is  time  to  utter  the  words, 
"  Return  we  to  our  coaches,"  the  essay  is  ended, 
and  only  the  reverberation  of  its  lofty  music  lives 
in  our  memory.  The  Essayist's  career  has  been 
somewhat  extravagantly  run  on  horseback,  and 
at  the  close  it  is  the  King  of  Peru,  and  not  we, 
whose  carriage  stops  the  way.  When  Montaigne 
wanders  from  his  professed  theme,  why  should 
we  quarrel  with  him?  He  never  wanders  from 
himself,  and  from  humanity  which  is  his  true 
theme.  If  he  goes  out  of  the  beaten  track  "it  is 
rather  by  license  than  oversight".  His  fantasies 
follow  one  another,  but  "  sometimes  with  a  wide 
interval";  they  look  towards  one  another,  but 
sometimes  with  an  oblique  glance.  "  I  love  a 
poetic  progress,  by  leaps  and  skips;  it  is  an  art, 
as  Plato  says,  light,  fleeting,  and  demonic.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  indiligent  reader  who  loses  my  subject, 
and  not  I ;  there  will  always  be  found  some  word 
or  other  in  a  corner,  that  will  prove  sufficient, 
though  closely  couched,"  He  does  not  care  to 
link  matter  with  matter  by  formal  connections, 
and  supposes  that  there  may  be  as  much  con- 
tinuity in  a  rivulet  as  in  a  chain.  Such  an  apol- 
ogy for  his  leaps  and  "  gambades"  means  that 
Montaigne  in  his  Essays  does  not  write  treatises, 
nor  deliver  speeches,  but  converses  with  himself 
and  his  readers.  The  unity  which  each  possesses 
247 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

is  not  that  of  formal  arrangement  but  the  unity 
of  a  mind  at  play  with  us  and  with  itself.  We 
come  to  his  book  not  to  exhaust  a  subject,  but 
to  hold  converse  with  a  friend, 

"  The  word  is  late,"  wrote  Bacon  of  his  Es- 
says, "  but  the  thing  is  ancient."  In  the  applica- 
tion which  he  gave  to  it,  the  word  seems  to  be 
an  extension  of  use  due  to  Montaigne.  But  he 
was  not  without  models  for  "  the  thing".  The 
Discours  of  his  French,  the  Discorsi  of  his  Italian, 
contemporaries  are  often  of  a  kind  similar  to 
Montaigne's  Essays;  their  subjects  are  in  many 
instances  identical  with  the  subjects  of  his  choice. 
His  originality  consists,  as  he  himself  would  put 
it,  not  in  "  artificialising  nature"  in  a  new  literary 
form,  but  in  "  naturalising  art".  He  gave  the 
Discourse,  if  not  greater  freedom  of  digression, 
certainly  greater  spontaneity;  he  made  it  less 
of  a  miniature  treatise  and  more  of  a  conversa- 
tion. Above  all,  he  made  it  personal;  he  took 
away  from  it  any  pretence  to  an  absolute  or  ab- 
stract exposition  of  truth ;  he  made  all  the  views 
of  things  presented  relative  to  himself;  he  ani- 
mated the  Discourse  with  his  own  individuality, 
the  vital  spirit  of  a  living  man,  and  through  what 
is  personal  he  reached  forth  towards  what  is  uni- 
versal. 

The  portrait  which  Montaigne  has  drawn  of 
himself  emerges  from  the  entire  canvas  of  the 
248 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

Essays  for  him  who  stands  at  the  right  point  of 
view.  Regarded  from  one  position  we  discover 
in  the  book  a  series  of  Discourses,  moral,  pohtic, 
and  miHtary.  Moving  aside,  and  looking  at  it 
obliquely,  the  portrait  exhibits  itself.  In  the 
Third  Book,  published  eight  years  after  the  first 
two,  Montaigne  allows  himself  to  be  more  gar- 
rulous than  he  had  previously  been.  Not  because 
he  had  reached  those  years  when  men  are  apt  to 
babble  of  themselves;  in  1588  Montaigne  was 
only  midway  between  fifty  and  sixty,  which  latter 
age  he  never  reached.  Not  for  this  reason,  but 
because  he  had  grown  more  intimate  with  his 
public  and  could  afford  to  be  more  confidential ; 
because  the  author  of  the  Essays  was  a  personage 
interesting  to  many,  and  in  days  when  the  profes- 
sional "  interviewer"  did  not  exist,  he  must  play 
the  part  of  his  own  interviewer  on  behalf  of  the 
friendly  reader;  because,  looking  at  the  portrait 
he  had  painted,  he  perceived  that  many  little 
touches  could  be  added  to  it,  and  he  desired  that 
it  should  not  leave  out  a  wTinkle  or  a  mole.  In 
the  Second  Book  the  essay  on  Presumption  is 
that  most  copiously  communicative  about  the 
author.  In  the  Third  Book  the  most  frank 
garrulities  are  found  in  the  admirable  essay  on 
Experience,  which  concludes  the  entire  series. 
Montaigne  had  become  "  his  own  metaphysic,  his 
own  physic",  and  how  could  he  study  himself  too 
249 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

minutely?  It  was  through  the  long  attention 
which  he  had  employed  in  considering  himself 
that  he  had  become  qualified  to  judge — "  pass- 
ably", at  least — of  others.  It  was  through  this 
long  attention  that  he  had  learned  something  of 
the  nature  of  that  frail  thing — a  human  creature. 
Even  the  failures  in  his  attempt  to  understand 
himself  were  light-bearing,  if  not  fruit-bearing, 
experiments ;  "  we  must  push  against  a  door  to 
ascertain  that  it  is  bolted  against  us". 

The  essay  Of  Presumption  tells  much  of 
Montaigne's  natural  characteristics;  that  Of 
Experience  much  of  his  acquired  habits.  He 
distinguished  between  the  form  of  self-esteem 
which  leads  us  to  set  too  little  value  upon  other 
persons  and  that  which  leads  us  to  set  too  great 
a  value  upon  ourselves.  He  rejoiced,  he  tells  us 
elsewhere,  and  the  Essays  give  ample  proof  that  he 
spoke  truly,  in  the  virtue  of  those  great  and  in- 
comparable spirits  that  shine  upon  us  from  the 
past — a  Socrates,  an  Alexander,  an  Epaminon- 
das — spirits  that  are  admirable  not  through  a 
single  faculty,  but  through  a  comprehensive  and 
various  possession  of  eminent  powers.  Other 
men  might  speak  cynically  of  the  virtue  of  these 
exalted  souls;  for  his  part,  he  could  not  meanly 
endeavour  to  lower  in  value  what  he  felt  to  be 
so  precious,  so  inestimable.  As  to  himself,  he 
believed  that  his  error  lay  in  esteeming  things 
250 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

at  less  than  their  true  vakie  because  they  hap- 
pened to  be  his  own.  The  house,  the  horse  of  a 
neighbour,  though  no  better  than  his  own,  were 
viewed  by  him  with  more  favourable  eyes  because 
they  were  not  his.  He  felt  that  he  w^as  unjust  to 
himself;  tried  to  alter  his  humour ;  and  fell  back 
into  the  old  way.  He  had  bodily  strength;  and 
for  long  that  blessing  of  blessings,  perfect  health. 
But  he  thought  of  what  went  to  counterbalance 
these  advantages — his  shortness  of  stature,  his 
somewhat  ungraceful  figure,  the  clumsiness  of 
his  hands  in  whatever  required  dexterity  or  skill. 
Vigour  of  body  he  possessed,  but  lightness,  alert- 
ness were  wanting  to  him.  And  so,  he  believed, 
it  was  also  with  his  mind;  it  moved  heavily,  or 
did  not  move  at  all,  unless  under  the  stimulus  and 
excitement  of  pleasure.  Yet,  in  truth,  his  mind 
when  roused  was  highly  sensitive,  eager  in  its 
curiosity,  and  often  needed  lead  more  than  wings. 
This,  however,  was  either  when  he  pursued  ideas 
rather  than  action,  or  else  when  the  action  was 
swift  and  impulsive.  Montaigne  shrank  from 
the  deliberation  which  precedes  action  that  is 
considerate.  All  the  reasons  for  and  against  any 
course  of  conduct  were  present  to  his  mind;  it 
cost  him  infinite  pain  to  decide  and  constrain 
himself  to  the  voluntary  servitude  of  his  own  will. 
His  years  of  meditation,  no  doubt,  years  of  float- 
ing hither  and  thither  among  ideas,  tended  to 
251 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

enfeeble  his  power  of  volition.  Yet  when  he  had 
decided,  he  could  adapt  himself  to  what  he  had 
himself  made  inevitable,  a  part,  as  it  were,  of 
fortune  or  of  fate.  It  was  perhaps  the  chief  in- 
firmity of  his  character  that  he  was  always  more 
ready  to  fit  his  own  temper  to  things  than  to  alter 
things  to  correspond  with  his  own  ideas  and  feel- 
ings. This  is  the  infirmity  of  those  who  live  an 
interior  life,  and  who  aim  at  an  equanimity  which 
they  do  not  attain.  Self-reformation  seems  to 
such  men  the  only  valuable  kind  of  reform ;  but  it 
is  the  readiness  to  accept  as  inevitable  a  condition 
of  things  which  may  be  altered  that,  in  fact,  needs 
to  be  reformed.  Had  a  hinge  of  his  library  door 
grated,  we  can  imagine  that  Montaigne,  like 
another  great  humourist,  might  have  waxed  elo- 
quent upon  door-hinges,  but  he  could  never  have 
discovered  that  three  drops  of  oil  with  a  feather 
and  a  smart  stroke  of  a  hammer  might  have  saved 
his  honour  for  ever.  In  truth,  the  amendments 
we  effect  in  things  external  react  upon  our  own 
character.  But,  except  when  the  tortures  of  his 
malady  drove  him  abroad  to  drink  the  waters, 
Montaigne  preferred  a  course  of  Stoical  moral- 
ising, which,  he  was  aware,  was  often  more  verbal 
than  real,  to  casting  himself  into  the  infinite  sea 
of  action,  where  every  decision  would  have  cost 
him  a  world  of  pains  in  balancing  his  scruples 
and  his  drams.  When  he  acted,  as  on  occasions 
252 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

he  did,  with  energy  and  promptitude,  it  was  under 
the  authority  of  his  Socratic  demon.  His  com- 
plexion, as  he  says,  was  dehcate;  he  had,  from 
early  boyhood,  lived  much  at  his  ease;  he  was 
disposed  to  think  that,  life  and  health  excepted, 
there  was  nothing  for  which  he  need  bite  his 
nails.  Yet  Montaigne  was  by  no  means  leth- 
argic; his  physical  energy  and  endurance  were 
great;  his  voice  was  loud  and  full  of  manly 
vigour;  his  speech  was  bold  and  frank;  he  was 
all  alive,  having  quicksilver,  he  tells  us,  in  his 
very  heels ;  he  cared  supremely  for  reality,  for  the 
substance  and  not  the  shadows  of  things;  he 
liked  a  strenuous  assailant  in  debate;  he  never 
sought  his  case  by  the  cowardly  short-cut  of  a 
lie.  Only,  all  the  movements  of  his  mind  must 
be  in  perfect  freedom  and  in  pursuit  of  his  proper 
game.  He  would  not,  or  he  could  not,  cast  up 
an  account;  he  never  would  untie  his  bundle  of 
title-deeds  and  afflict  his  brain  with  their  legal 
jargon;  he  hardly  knew  one  coin  from  another; 
he  might,  for  all  the  difference  that  he  could  per- 
ceive, call  his  barley  rye  or  his  lettuce  cabbage; 
he  would  not  be  bullied  by  practical  persons  into 
acquiring  useful  knowledge,  or  by  pedants  into 
acquiring  the  useless  knowledge,  which  is  their 
pride.  How  to  enjoy  loyally  his  own  being 
was  the  only  knowledge  worth  the  research  of 
Montaigne.  To  enjoy  loyally  his  own  being — 
253 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

that  indeed  was  an  absolute,  almost  a  divine,  per- 
fection. 

To  such  self-revealments  as  these  Montaigne 
adds,  and  especially  in  the  later  essays,  many 
petty  details  which  yet  are  not  all  insignificant 
and  help  to  make  us  as  intimate  with  the  owner 
of  the  chateau  as  one  might  have  become,  who, 
like  Pater's  Gaston  de  Latour,  had  been  a  vis- 
itor within  its  walls  for  months.  In  customary, 
habitual  ways  Montaigne  found  a  certain  free- 
dom; they  released  him  from  many  small  em- 
barrassments; but  habits  may  grow  into  a 
tyranny,  and  he  thought  that  a  young  man  at 
least  would  do  well  at  times  to  cross  his  own 
rules.  He  himself  was  naturally  pliant  and 
flexible,  and  he  believed  that  the  best  of  all  habits 
is  the  habit  of  flexibility.  And  yet  as  he  grew 
older  he  found  that  in  little  things  he  was  falling 
into  a  groove.  He  could  not  be  comfortable  out- 
of-doors  unless  he  were  braced  and  buttoned  and 
wore  his  gloves;  yet  man  in  a  state  of  nature 
does  not  find  gloves  a  necessity.  He  needed  at 
table  his  fine,  clear  drinking-glasses,  though  he 
drank  wine  but  moderately,  and  never  beer;  he 
needed  his  napkin,  for  in  eating  he  used  his  awk- 
ward fingers  more  than  fork  or  spoon;  at  his 
two  full  meals — swiftly  despatched — he  ate 
abundantly  whatever  came  before  him,  preferring 
fish  to  flesh  and  not  disdaining  a  hearty  enjoy- 

254 


WRITING    THE    ESSAYS 

ment  of  his  food.  He  liked  to  lie  on  a  hard  bed, 
but  he  could  not  dispense  with  bed-hangings,  and 
he  even  thought  that  a  prudent  traveller  should 
take  these  with  him  on  his  journey ings.  Eight 
or  nine  hours  of  uninterrupted  sleep  were  not  too 
many  for  him,  and  to  rise  at  seven  o'clock  was 
for  Montaigne  to  rise  early;  yet  when  occasion 
demanded  it,  or  sometimes  with  no  other  motive 
than  to  break  a  habit,  he  could  be  content  with  as 
little  sleep  as  any  one.  When  resting  in  the  day- 
time he  did  not  doze;  but  the  little  man  liked 
to  sit  with  his  heels  higher  than  his  seat,  and  to 
scratch  his  ears,  for  scratching  is  "  one  of  Nature's 
sweetest  gratifications",  and  not  unworthy  in  a 
philosopher.  Even  in  this  indulgence,  however, 
as  experience  instructed  him,  a  philosopher  should 
endeavour  to  avoid  violence  and  excess,  never 
passing  beyond  the  wise  mean  of  prudent  titilla- 
tion. 

Let  us  leave  Montaigne  in  his  pleasant  attitude, 
engaged  in  his  meditative  recreation,  and  let  us 
consider  what  thoughts  occupied  his  busy  brain — 
the  philosophy  and  not  the  philosopher.  The  two, 
however,  cannot  in  reality  be  separated,  and  per- 
haps the  word  "  philosophy"  sounds  too  ambi- 
tious, too  suggestive  of  system.  It  is  wiser  to 
speak  of  Montaigne's  body  of  thought,  not  as  a 
system,  but  as  some  of  his  ideas  concerning  hu- 
man nature  and  human  life. 
255 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE   SPIRIT   OF   THE   ESSAYS 

Those  well-known  words  which  form  what 
might  be  called  the  epilogue  to  the  Essays  give 
in  little  the  central  result  of  all  Montaigne's  di- 
verse and  wandering  inquisitions  after  truth: 

"  It  is  an  absolute  perfection,  and  as  it  were  divine,  for 
a  man  to  know  how  to  enjoy  loyally  his  being.  We  seek 
for  other  conditions  because  we  understand  not  the  use  of 
our  own,  and  go  forth  from  ourselves  because  we  know  not 
what  abides  within  us.  If  we  mount  us  on  stilts,  well  and 
good,  for  on  stilts  it  is  still  our  own  legs  we  walk  on ; 
and  sit  we  upon  the  highest  throne  of  the  world,  yet  sit  we 
upon  our  own  tail.  The  fairest  lives,  in  my  conceit,  are 
those  which  adapt  themselves  to  the  common  and  human 
model,  with  order  but  without  miracle,  without  extrava- 
gance. Old  age  has  a  little  need  to  be  handled  more  ten- 
derly. Let  us  recommend  it  to  that  God,  who  is  the  pro- 
tector of  health  and  wisdom,  but  blithe  and  social." 

Is  this  an  easy  doctrine  of  hedonism?  Whether 
we  name  it  hedonism  or  not,  Montaigne  did  not 
account  it  easy ;  he  thought  all  other  attainments 
less  rare  and  difficult  than  mastery  in  the  art  of 
loyally  enjoying  our  being.  A  life  at  once  truly 
human  and  complete  in  all  its  parts  is  "  the 
great  and  glorious  masterpiece  of  man".  To 
reign,  to  lay  up  treasure,  to  build — these  are  easy 
256 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

things,  mere  "  appendices"  of  true  living.  Have 
you  known — he  asks — how  to  meditate  and  man- 
age your  hfe?  You  have  accomphshed  the  great- 
est work  of  all.  Have  you  known  how  to  regulate 
your  conduct  ?  You  have  done  more  than  he  who 
has  composed  books.  Have  you  known  how  to 
take  repose?  You  have  done  more  than  he  who 
has  taken  empires  and  cities. 

For  the  art  of  loyally  enjoying  our  being  we 
might  substitute  the  expression :  the  art  of  living 
completely  and  living  aright.  And  why  should 
this  be  difficult  to  attain?  Such  was  the  thought 
of  Wordsworth's  Matthew,  the  "  gray-haired 
man  of  glee".  The  blackbird  and  the  lark  "  Let 
loose  their  carols  when  they  please,  Are  quiet 
when  they  will" — they  know  unerroneous  energy 
and  exquisite  repose: 

"  With   Nature   never   do   they   wage 
A  foolish  strife ;    they  see 
A  happy  youth,  and  their  old  age 
Is  beautiful  and  free." 

Montaigne  often  recurs  to  the  old  formula — 
"  to  live  according  to  Nature" ;  to  live  thus  is  to 
Hve  completely  and  aright;  it  is  to  enjoy  loyally 
one's  own  being.  Wordsworth's  Matthew  passes 
from  the  life  of  the  lark  and  blackbird  to  that 
of  humanity  with  the  words,  "  But  we  are  pressed 
by  heavy  laws."  Montaigne  refuses  to  recognise 
17  257 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

these  heavy  laws  as  Natural ;  he  declares  that  we 
have  forged  them  ourselves,  that  we  are  our  own 
oppressors. 

With  this  thought  in  his  mind  he  indulges  in 
the  fancy  that  the  primitive  races,  the  newly-dis- 
covered peoples  of  the  West,  the  "  cannibals",  as 
we  call  them,  have  certain  real  advantages  over 
the  races  which  we  name  civilised.  The  "  canni- 
bals" are  surely  nearer  to  Nature  than  we;  the 
laws  of  Nature  still  govern  them,  if  not  in  perfect 
purity,  yet  less  vitiated  by  custom  than  they  are 
with  us.  If  they  "wear  no  breeches"  (which  is 
sad),  yet  they  have  not  even  the  words  that  sig- 
nify lying,  treachery,  dissimulation,  avarice,  envy, 
detraction ;  and  in  this  there  is  some  compensa- 
tion. But  to  see  the  happiness  of  a  state  of  society 
which  approaches  the  state  of  Nature,  we  need 
not  survey  mankind  at  so  great  a  distance  as 
Peru  or  Prospero's  island.  We  need  not  go  be- 
yond the  foot  of  the  mountains  where,  at  Lahon- 
tan,  Montaigne  himself  had  a  share  in  the 
patronage  of  a  benefice.  The  little  state  from  the 
remotest  antiquity  had  preserved  its  own  peculiar 
manners,  customs,  and  laws.  It  avoided  all 
alliances  and  commerce  with  the  outer  world. 
No  judge  ever  crossed  its  borders;  the  voice  of 
no  advocate  was  ever  heard  within  its  bounds ; 
no  physician  was  there  to  invent  high-sounding 
names  for  trivial  maladies  and  prescribe  per- 
258 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

nicious  drugs.  In  the  last  essay  of  the  Second 
Book  Montaigne  tells  how  the  first  notary  played 
the  part  of  the  serpent  in  this  happy  Eden,  and 
how  the  doctor  of  medicine  followed  in  his  train. 
The  happy  people  of  Lahontan  have  since  then 
been  afflicted  with  a  thousand  legal  quarrels  and 
a  legion  of  newly-invented  diseases. 

Montaigne  does  not,  like  Rousseau,  erect  his 
whimsy,  as  he  might  call  it,  into  a  doctrine.  His 
humorous  praise  of  the  cannibals  is  partly  the 
dream  of  a  poet,  partly  an  advocate's  statement  of 
a  case  against  the  vices  of  civilisation  in  his  own 
day — its  treacheries  of  statecraft,  its  cruelties  of 
fratricidal  war.  But  nurtured  as  he  was  when 
a  child  among  peasants,  seeing  their  sufferings, 
their  loyalty,  their  boundless  endurance,  and  being 
himself  often  fatigued  in  heart  and  brain  by  the 
heavy  and  the  weary  weight  of  all  this  unintelli- 
gible world,  which  they  felt  not  at  all,  or  bore 
so  lightly  and  so  bravely,  Montaigne  believed  that, 
if  we  have  gained  much,  we  have  also  lost  much 
by  our  complexities  of  thought  and  our  refine- 
ments or  perversions  of  the  elementary  passions 
of  humanity.  We  cannot  return  to  the  simple 
state  of  the  peasant ;  having  once  eaten  of  the  in- 
sane root  which  ravages  the  brain  with  the  disease 
of  speculation,  we  can  heal  our  malady  only  by 
pursuing  the  problems  that  harass  us  until  we 
have  solved  them  or  ascertained  that  they  are  in- 
259 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

soluble.  A  hasty  agnosticism  is,  indeed,  treason 
against  the  intellect  of  man.  It  is  our  business  to 
pursue  the  truth,  and  there  is  joy  in  the  pursuit. 
But  if,  in  the  end,  we  learn  that  to  possess  the 
truth  respecting  many  curious  questions  belongs 
to  a  Higher  Power  than  our  reason,  shall  we  be 
afraid  to  confess  this  truth  itself,  which  is  the 
result  of  our  long  research?  And  may  not  the 
admission  of  our  ignorance  be  an  important  step 
towards  that  loyal  enjoyment  of  our  being,  in  its 
real  fulness  and  in  its  alloted  sphere,  which  is  our 
end?  For  such  high  enjoyment  we  need  action 
and  we  need  repose.  How  shall  we  act  aright 
if  we  waste  our  energy  in  a  sphere  which  is  not 
proper  to  us?  How  shall  we  rest  if  we  are  tor- 
mented by  desires  for  that  which  it  is  not  given 
us  to  attain? 

But  the  knowledge  of  our  ignorance  is  to  be 
won  only  by  a  persistent  reaching  forth  to  the 
utmost  bounds  of  our  knowledge,  l  "  No  generous 
mind  can  stop  in  itself;  it  ever  makes  claims  and 
goes  beyond  its  strength;  it  has  sallies  beyond 
its  effects;  if  it  does  not  advance  and  press  for- 
ward, and  retire,  and  drive  home,  and  recoil  upon 
itself  and  turn  about,  it  is  but  half  alive.'f  There 
is  an  "  abecedarian"  ignorance,  Montaigne  de- 
clares, which  goes  before  knowledge,  and  a  "  doc- 
toral" ignorance  which  follows  after  knowledge — 
"  an  ignorance  which  knowledge  makes  and  en- 
260 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

genders,  even  as  it  unmakes  and  destroys  the 
first."  The  simple  peasants  are  worthy  folks;  so 
too  are  the  philosophers,  strong  and  perspicacious 
spirits,  enriched  with  an  ample  instruction  in  the 
profitable  sciences.  In  the  middle  region  between 
the  two,  and  in  understandings  of  average 
capacity,  instructed  but  not  fully  instructed  (and 
Montaigne  would  place  himself  among  these) 
arise  all  the  errors  of  vain  opinions.  The  hasty 
half-views  of  truth,  which  such  persons  attain, 
induce  them  to  quit  the  old  paths  in  which  their 
fathers  walked;  they  are  the  illuminated,  the  men 
of  the  Aufkldrung,  the  revolutionary  doctrinaires, 
dangerous,  inept,  importunate ;  sitters  between 
two  stools,  who  sooner  or  later  come  to  the 
ground;  mongrels,  who  have  scorned  the  abe- 
cedarian ignorance  and  have  not  the  faculty  to 
ascend  to  the  doctoral.  From  among  great  souls, 
more  composed,  more  clear-sighted,  come  the 
great  believers,  "  who  by  a  long  and  religious  in- 
vestigation, penetrate  a  more  profound  and  ab- 
struse light  in  the  Scriptures,  and  are  sensible  of 
the  mysterious  and  divine  secret  of  our  ecclesias- 
tical polity." 

Montaigne's  admiration  of  those  full  and  com- 
plete souls,  which  ascertain  the  bounds  of  human 
capacity  and  then  proceed  to  work  out  all  that 
is  best  within  the  appointed  bounds,  is  genuine 
and  ardent.  But  the  average  human  creature, 
261 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

occupying'  the  middle  region  between  the  two 
ignorances,  needs  more  to  be  reminded  of  his  in- 
firmities than  to  be  exalted  with  vain  flattery  of 
his  nature.  The  doctoral  ignorance  is  "  strong 
and  generous",  yielding  nothing  in  honour  and 
in  courage  to  knowledge.  The  hastily-assumed 
knowledge  of  the  middle  region  is  really  the  shal- 
lowest self-conceit,  true  though  it  be  that  almost 
all  opinions  have  in  them  a  tincture  of  reason. 
And  what  a  thing  is  this  nature  of  man !  Look- 
ing into  himself  Montaigne  could  credit  all  old- 
wives'  fables  of  strange  monstrosity — and  yet 
what  is  that  which  we  name  "  monstrosity"  but 
nature  misunderstood? — for  nowhere  did  he  per- 
ceive so  strange  a  monster  as  himself.  A  mon- 
ster not  twiformed  but  shaped  from  a  thousand 
incoherent  pieces.  The  longer  he  dwelt  with  him- 
self the  more  his  deformity  astonished  him,  the 
less  he  could  comprehend  so  anomalous  a  creat- 
ure. To  understand  how  a  single  thought,  a 
single  feeling  arose  within  him  was  difficult,  so 
dazzling  was  its  iridescence;  to  understand  his 
whole  course  of  life  was  a  hopeless  task,  so  much 
it  differed  from  itself.  The  only  thing  constant 
seemed  to  be  inconstancy.  "  It  looks  as  if  there 
were  a  show  of  reason  in  forming  a  judgment  of 
a  man  from  the  most  general  features  of  his  life; 
but,  considering  the  natural  instability  of  our 
manners  and  opinions,  it  often  seems  to  me  that 
262 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

even  the  best  authors  are  wrong  in  obstinately  en- 
deavouring to  form  out  of  us  any  constant  and 
soHd  contexture;  they  make  choice  of  some  gen- 
eral aspect,  and  according  to  that  image  they 
arrange  and  interpret  all  a  man's  actions;  if  they 
cannot  bend  these  sufficiently,  they  dismiss  them 
as  proceeding  from  dissimulation  ...  I  can 
more  hardly  credit  a  man's  constancy  than  any 
other  thing,  and  I  credit  nothing  more  readily 
than  his  inconstancy.  He  that  would  judge  a 
man  in  detail,  separating  him  bit  by  bit,  would 
oftener  light  upon  a  true  word."  *  Our  accus- 
tomed motion  is  to  follow  the  inclinations  of  our 
appetite,  to  left,  to  right,  up  hill,  down  dale,  as 
the  wind  of  occasion  blows  us.  As  for  Montaigne 
himself,  he  had  only  added  to  the  other  instabili- 
ties of  human  nature  the  agitation  and  trouble  of 
contemplating  his  own  instability.  "  If  I  speak 
variously  of  myself,  it  is  because  I  consider 
myself  variously;  all  contrarieties  are  found  in 
me,  at  this  turn  or  that,  in  this  way  or  another; 
bashful,  insolent ;  chaste,  luxurious ;  prating, 
taciturn;  laborious,  delicate;  ingenious,  dull; 
fretful,  debonair ;  lying,  truthful ;  knowing,  ignor- 
ant; and  liberal,  and  avaricious,  and  prodigal." 
The  way  of  wisdom  should  be  a  constant  way; 
and   how   shall   one   who   has   not   in   the   main 

*  Essays,  II,  i. 
263 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

directed  his  course  to  a  certain  end,  how  shall  he 
dispose  his  particular  actions?  But  we,  human 
creatures,  resemble  that  animal  which  takes  its 
colour  from  whatever  leaf  or  stone  that  is  on 
which  it  rests. 

The  infirmity  of  human  intellect  is  only  part 
of  a  nature  which  is  all  infirmity.  We  inhabit 
the  region  of  perturbations,  to  which  the  peasant 
has  not  yet  climbed  and  which  the  philosopher 
has  transcended,  and  all  we  can  hope  for  at  best 
is  to  moderate  those  perturbations.  Our  affec- 
tions carry  themselves  away  beyond  our  nature 
and  our  reach.  This  is  of  all  errors  the  most 
common,  if  indeed  it  be  an  error  and  not  rather 
a  cunning  provision  of  Nature  herself,  which  sac- 
rifices the  individual  in  order  that  her  w'ork  may 
be  accomplished,  and  lures  us  forever  beyond 
ourselves  by  delusive  imaginations. .  If  the  soul 
should  miss  its  true  objects,  it  must  find  objects 
that  are  false  on  which  to  expend  its  passions ;  if 
these  again  should  fail,  the  soul  turns  inward  and 
discharges  its  violence  upon  itself.  It  would 
rather  cheat  itself  by  creating  something  wholly 
fantastic  on  which  to  wreak  its  rage  or  its  love 
than  be  defrauded  of  some  outlet  for  its  desire. 
And  even  if  its  passions  are  directed  aright,  it 
will  convert  good  to  evil  by  their  excess.  "We 
may  lay  hold  upon  virtue  so  that  it  will  become 
vicious,  if  we  clasp  it  with  too  rude  and  violent 
264 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

an  embrace."  We  taste  nothing"  pure;  our 
virtue  is  never  without  some  alloy  of  evil,  our 
vice  is  seldom  without  some  touch  of  goodness. 
We  are  one  thing  to-day,  and  to-morrow  its 
opposite. 

So  ever  and  anon,  if  not  continuously,  through- 
out the  Essays  proceeds  Montaigne's  indictment 
of  humanity.  What  is  the  final  issue  ?  Should  it 
not  be  a  misanthropy  like  that  of  Swift?  Or,  if 
not  this,  some  melancholy  kind  of  pessimism?  It 
is  neither  of  these  with  Montaigne,  for  at  heart 
he  loves  life  and  would  loyally  enjoy  his  being. 
He  makes  a  return  upon  himself,  and  accepts  the 
conditions  of  humanity,  accepts  such  limitations 
and  infirmities  as  are  inevitable,  and  endeavours 
to  cultivate  his  garden,  even  as  it  is.  "  Greatness 
of  soul  consists  not  so  much  in  mounting  and  in 
pressing  forward  as  in  knowing  how  to  range  and 
circumscribe  one's  self;  it  takes  for  great  every- 
thing that  is  enough,  and  shows  its  stature  by 
preferring  moderate  to  eminent  things.  There  is 
nothing  so  beautiful  and  so  legitimate  as  well  and 
duly  to  play  the  man;  nor  science  so  arduous  as 
well  and  naturally  to  know  how  to  live  this  life 
of  ours;  and  of  our  maladies  the  most  wild  and 
barbarous  is  to  despise  our  being.  .  .  .  For  my 
part  then,  I  love  life  and  cultivate  it,  such  as  it  has 
pleased  God  to  bestow  it  upon  us."  In  this  pres- 
ent, created  for  us  by  God,  he  goes  on,  there  is 
26s 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

nothing  unworthy  of  our  concern;   we  stand  ac- 
countable for  it  even  to  a  hair. 

"  Well  and  duly  to  play  the  man."  '  Let  the 
heroes  of  our  race,  heroes  of  the  life  of  thought 
like  Socrates,  heroes  of  the  life  of  action  like 
Epaminondas,  play  the  man  in  their  own  great 
way.  They  are  accountable,  even  to  a  hair,  for 
their  heroisms.  As  for  us  of  the  middle  region, 
our  heroism  lies  in  moderation,  in  accepting  our 
place,  and  finding  our  happiness  in  its  labours, 
its  pleasures,  and  its  repose.  This,  and  this  alone, 
is  the  meaning  of  the  old  precept  to  live  according 
to  Nature.  And,  indeed,  Nature  is  "  a  gentle 
guide,  but  not  more  gentle  than  prudent  and 
just".  The  infinite  prudence  of  Nature — on  this, 
one  of  her  most  admirable  virtues,  Montaigne 
waxes  eloquent.  As  she  has  given  us  feet  to  walk 
with,  so  she  has  given  us  enough  of  her  prudence 
to  conduct  us  through  life;  a  prudence  not  so 
ingenious  or  pompous  as  that  professed  by  the 
crowd  of  contending  philosophers,  but  which 
achieves  what  they  only  talk  of,  a  prudence  that 
is  "  facile,  quiet,  and  salutary".  And  of  a  life 
so  guided  the  ultimate  attainment  should  be  a 
radiant  calm :  "  The  soul  estimates  how  much  it 
owes  to  God  to  have  repose  of  conscience  and 
freedom  from  intestine  passions ;  to  have  the  body 
in  its  natural  disposition,  orderly  and  adequately 
enjoying  those  soft  and  gratifying  functions,  with 
266 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

which  He  by  his  grace  is  pleased  to  compensate 
the  sufferings  wherewith  his  justice  in  its  turn 
chastises  us;  the  soul  considers  of  how  great 
worth  it  is  to  be  stationed  at  such  a  point  that, 
which  way  soever  it  turns  the  eye,  the  heavens 
are  cahn  around  it;  no  desire,  no  fear  or  doubt 
to  trouble  the  air;  no  difficulty,  past,  present, 
future,  over  which  its  imagination  may  not  pass 
without  offence."  *  Montaigne  was  no  religious 
mystic.  He  embraced,  he  says,  of  philosophical 
opinions  those  which  are  the  most  solid — that  is 
to  say,  the  most  human,  the  most  our  own.  But 
a  religious  mystic  could  hardly  shadow  forth  in 
words  a  peace  more  pure  or  more  luminous  than 
this. 

Self-sacrifice,  self-surrender  may  be  the  means 
to  some  great  end;  it  may  be  endured  for  some 
joy  that  is  set  before  it;  but  self-sacrifice  cannot 
itself  be  our  end.  "  Loyally  to  enjoy  our  being" 
is  Montaigne's  expression,  as  it  were,  for  his 
private  edification ;  but  to  challenge  opponents 
he  needs  a  less  elevated  and  a  more  irritating 
word,  one  that  may  serve  as  a  lash  to  the  dulness 
of  the  average  understanding,  and  he  chooses  the 
word  "  pleasure".  In  virtue  itself  the  final  aim  of 
all  our  efforts  is  this  decried  thing,  pleasure;  this, 
and  nothing  else.     "  It  pleases  me  to  batter  men's 

*  Essays,  III,  13 
267 


AIICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

ears  with  the  word,  and  if  it  has  acquired  the  sig- 
nificance of  some  supreme  dehght  and  excessive 
contentment,  this  is  more  owing  to  the  help  of  vir- 
tue than  to  any  other  help."  The  voluptuousness 
of  virtue,  in  that  it  is  more  gay,  more  sinewy,  more 
robust,  more  virile  than  any  other,  is  only  the 
"  more  seriously  voluptuous".  We  ought  rather 
to  name  virtue,  Montaigne  thinks,  a  more  gra- 
cious, sweet,  and  natural  pleasure  than  name  it, 
as  we  are  accustomed  to  do,  from  its  quality  of 
manly  vigour.  Other  pleasures  are  troubled  with 
crosses  and  inconveniences,  are  momentary,  are 
thin  and  watery,  or  entail  a  dull  weight  of  satiety. 
Virtue,  it  is  true,  is  attained  through  trials  and 
difficulties,  but  these  in  a  peculiar  degree  "  en- 
noble, sharpen,  and  heighten  the  divine  and  per- 
fect pleasure  which  it  procures  us.  He  who  would 
weigh  the  cost  against  the  fruit  is  very  unworthy 
of  entering  into  intimacy  with  it."  Its  pursuit, 
however  arduous,  is  itself  a  joy,  and,  in  truth,  at 
best  we  are  ever  in  pursuit.  Our  whole  life  can 
be  no  more  than  an  apprenticeship  to  the  ideal. 

IVIontaigne  will  not  allow  the  name  of  virtue  to 
those  inclinations  towards  goodness  which  are 
born  with  us.  One  who  is  naturally  sweet-tem- 
pered may  not  resent  an  injury,  and  such  a  dis- 
position is  a  thing  of  rare  beauty.  But  he  who 
is  stung  to  the  quick  and  masters  the  passion  of 
vengeance  has  attained  to  something  higher,  has 
268 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

attained  to  virtue.  It  requires  "  a  rough  and 
thorny  way",  difficulties  to  wrestle  with,  either 
external  to  the  soul,  the  tests  placed  in  our  way 
by  fortune,  or  internal,  arising  from  our  dis- 
orderly appetites  and  the  defects  of  character.  We 
are  reminded  of  the  distinction  made  by  Words- 
worth in  his  Ode  to  Duty  between  those  who  do 
the  work  of  duty  and  know  it  not,  whose  security 
can  yet  never  be  absolute,  and  those  who,  checked 
and  reproved  by  the  "  stern  daughter  of  the  voice 
of  God",  have  at  length  made  her  law  their  own. 
The  highest  state  of  all,  and  that  of  the  rarest  at- 
tainment, is  when  virtue  has  become,  as  it  were, 
nature — a  second  nature,  with  all  its  inevitable- 
ness  and  all  its  sweet  facility.  In  the  opening  of 
the  essay,  Of  Cruelty,  Montaigne  points  to  So- 
crates and  to  the  younger  Cato  as  examples  of 
virtue  which  has  climbed  to  the  height  where  it  is 
possession  rather  than  pursuit,  where  effort  is 
lost  in  absolute  light  and  absolute  joy,  a  light  that 
is  unerring,  and  a  joy  that  is  its  own  security. 
As  for  himself,  returning  from  his  hymn  in 
honour  of  Greek  and  Roman  virtue  to  plain 
prose  he  assures  us  that  he  has  not  given  good 
proofs  even  of  the  lower  and  laborious  excellence : 
"  I  have  made  no  great  effort  to  curb  the  vices 
by  which  I  have  been  importuned ;  my  virtue 
is  a  virtue,  or  rather  an  innocence,  accidental  and 
fortuitous;  had  I  been  born  of  a  more  irregular 
269 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

complexion,  I  fear  it  would  have  gone  miserably 
ill  with  me ;  for  I  have  hardly  ever  tried  to  con- 
firm my  soul  against  the  press  of  passions."  If 
he  was  exempt  from  many  vices,  this  was  rather 
his  happy  fortune,  he  says,  than  the  result  of 
reason.  He  came  of  a  race  distingushed  for  in- 
tegrity, he  was  brought  up  by  an  admirable  father, 
and  naturally  held  most  vices  in  detestation. 

It  would  not  profit  us  much  to  find  a  label 
which  might  be  affixed  to  Montaigne  as  a  moral- 
ist. If  we  should  name  him  a  Stoic  of  the  more 
gracious  and  amiable  type  we  should  have  to  re- 
mind ourselves  that  he  has  close  affinities  with  the 
sect  of  Epicurus,  "  the  opinions  and  precepts  of 
which  in  firmness  and  rigour  yield  nothing  to  the 
Stoic  School".  We  should  in  the  end  have  to  de- 
scribe him  as  an  eclectic,  whose  morals,  humane 
and  yet,  in  a  true  sense,  severe,  were  those  of 
the  antique  world,  touched — not  penetrated — by 
a  beam  of  Christian  light.  In  the  honour  and 
affection  with  which  he  regarded  the  body  he  held 
that  he  was  only  developing  into  its  wider  mean- 
ings a  truth  which  is  implied  in  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tianity; yet  it  may  be  conjectured  that  St.  Paul 
would  hardly  have  recognised  in  Montaigne  a 
fellow  disciple.  His  feeling  has  in  reality  no 
direct  relation  with  any  form  of  religious  belief, 
though  it  determined  some  of  Montaigne's  ec- 
clesiastical preferences;  it  is  founded  upon  his 
270 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

observations  in  the  natural  history  of  the  genus 
homo  and  of  the  specimen  of  that  genus  which  he 
had  most  persistently  studied.  There  is  nothing 
in  us,  he  maintains,  wholly  incorporeal  and 
nothing  wholly  corporeal.  It  will  serve  no  good 
purpose  to  break  ourselves  up  into  fragments.  He 
hated  "  that  inhuman  wisdom  which  would  make 
us  hostile  to  the  culture  of  the  body  or  scornful 
of  it".  Instead  of  sequestering,  each  from  the 
other,  the  two  parts  of  our  nature,  we  should 
rather  closely  couple  them  or,  as  far  as  may  be, 
reunite  them :  "  We  must  command  the  soul  not 
to  withdraw  and  entertain  itself  apart,  to  despise 
and  abandon  the  body  (neither  can  she  do  it  but 
by  some  counterfeited  apish  trick),  but  to  re-ally 
herself  with  it,  to  embrace  it,  to  cherish  it,  to 
assist,  to  control  it,  to  counsel  it,  to  bring  it  back 
when  it  goes  astray ;  in  a  word,  to  espouse  and  be 
a  husband  to  it,  so  that  the  result  of  their  opera- 
tions may  not  appear  to  be  diverse  and  contrary, 
but  concurring  and  uniform."  As  Montaigne 
advanced  in  years  he  professed  himself  more 
deliberately  Anacreontic,  and  thought  it  wise  to 
defend  himself  now  against  temperance,  as  he  had 
formerly  defended  himself  against  pleasure.  Old 
age  grows  dull  and  besotted  with  prudence,  but  he 
would  have  it  gay,  as  far  as  good  sense  permits. 
He  would  seize  the  least  occasions  of  pleasure, 
he,  who  was  so  often  racked  with  pain.  Why 
271 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

should  he  not  lash  a  top  if  it  amused  him? 
"  Plato  ordains  that  old  men  should  be  present 
at  the  exercises,  dances,  and  sports  of  young 
people,  that  they  may  rejoice  by  proxy  in  the 
suppleness  and  beauty  of  body  which  are  no 
longer  theirs,  and  call  back  to  mind  the  grace 
and  comeliness  of  that  flourishing  age."  *  Like 
another  sage,  Montaigne  had  eagerly  frequented 
the  Doctors,  and  heard  great  argument  about  it 
and  about : 

"  but  evermore 
Came  out  by  the  same  Door  as  in  I  went." 

Now  there  were  moods  when  he  would  allege 
to  himself  that  it  were  well  to  divorce  old  barren 
Reason  from  his  bed,  and  take  the  daughter  of 
the  vine  to  spouse.  And  he  was  well  aware,  as 
was  his  fellow  sage  of  Persia,  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  pathos,  something  sadly  self-conscious 
in  such  expedients  of  old  age,  which  is  glad  be- 
cause it  is  melancholy.  A  young  man  who  pre- 
tends to  a  taste  in  sauces  should  be  whipped ;  as 
sexagenarian  years  approach,  let  us  begin  to  learn 
the  i'erious  value  of  a  sauce — it  is  not  too  volup- 
tuous an  indulgence  of  our  senility;  we  must 
wheedle  ourselves  a  little — and  how  little  it  is, 
after  all,  that  we  can  wheedle  ourselves !     Neither 

*  Essays,  III,  5. 
272 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

the  great  masters  of  warfare  nor  tlie  great  phi- 
losophers despised  an  exquisite  dinner,  and  the 
httle  philosopher  of  the  tower — essentially  simple 
in  all  his  ways — plays  with  the  thought  of  three 
feasts  of  his  earlier  manhood,  which  fortune  had 
made  of  sovereign  sweetness  to  him,  and  which 
his  reason  bids  his  recollection  cherish  as  memor- 
able gains  of  his  life.  But  better  than  these, 
better  than  all,  except  friendship  and  wisdom,  is 
health,  which  in  its  full,  continuous  possession  can 
no  more  be  had.  "  I  receive  health  with  open 
arms,  free,  full,  and  entire;  and  by  so  much  the 
more  whet  my  appetite  to  enjoy  it,  by  how  much 
it  is  at  present  less  ordinary  and  more  rare;  so 
far  I  am  from  troubling  its  repose  and  sweetness 
with  the  bitterness  of  a  new  and  constrained  man- 
ner of  living."  Let  those  who  would  impose  laws 
against  the  sane  satisfactions  of  the  body  for- 
swear breathing;  let  them  refuse  the  light  of  the 
sun.  There  is  season  and  a  time  to  every  pur- 
pose under  the  heaven ;  a  time,  says  Solomon, 
to  embrace — and  shall  we  then  occupy  our 
thoughts  with  the  quadrature  of  the  circle? — and 
a  time  to  refrain  from  embracing :  "  When  I 
dance,  I  dance ;  when  I  sleep,  I  sleep ;  nay,  when 
I  walk  in  the  solitude  of  some  fair  orchard,  if  my 
thoughts  for  some  part  of  the  time  are  taken  up 
with  external  occurrences,  during  some  other  part 
of  the  time  I  call  them  back  again  to  my  walk, 
1 8  2-]z 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

to  the  orchard,  to  the  sweetness  of  that  soHtude, 
and  to  myself." 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Montaigne  should  have 
seen  little  wisdom  in  the  practices  of  ascetic  dis- 
cipline. Discipline  there  is  in  the  various  efforts 
which  are  needful  in  order  that  we  may  learn 
loyally  to  enjoy  our  being.  To  attain  the  higher 
ignorance  requires  an  askcsis  of  the  intellect.  To 
attain  virtue  is  impossible  without  trial,  difficulty, 
and  danger.  Moderation  is  less  easy  to  maintain 
than  abstinence.  When  the  natural  discipline  of 
life  has  been  put  to  use  and  found  inadequate, 
we  may  consider  the  uses  of  self-inflicted  hard- 
ships. There  is  a  place,  Montaigne  tells  us,  where 
the  sun  is  abominated  and  darkness  adored ;  for 
his  own  part,  he  saw  best  under  a  clear  sky  and 
was  thankful  to  the  Giver  of  Light.  Shall  we 
consider  our  own  fantastic  rules  as  superior  to  the 
laws  of  Nature  and  of  God?  Or  is  God,  indeed, 
a  cruel  and  capricious  deity,  who  delights  in 
human  sacrifice?  "  Behold,  lord,"  said  the  Mexi- 
cans to  Cortez,  "  here  are  five  slaves :  if  thou  art 
a  fierce  god  that  feedeth  upon  flesh  and  blood, 
devour  them,  and  we  will  bring  thee  more;  if 
thou  art  an  affable  god,  behold  here  incense  and 
feathers;  if  thou  art  a  man,  take  these  fowls  and 
these  fruits  that  we  have  brought  thee."  And 
shall  we  look  upon  our  God  as  a  more  furious 
Cortez?  Those  devotees  who  by  their  ascetic 
274 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

practices  hope  to  dissociate  the  soul  from  the 
body,  save  in  rare  examples  of  extraordinary 
spirits,  would  fain  cease  to  be  men.  "  It  is  folly," 
pronounces  Montaigne;  "instead  of  transform- 
ing themselves  into  angels  they  transform  them- 
selves into  beasts;  instead  of  elevating  they  de- 
grade themselves.  These  transcendental  humours 
affright  me,  like  high  and  inaccessible  places." 
He  chose  rather  to  associate  his  soul  gratefully 
with  all  the  sane  and  natural  joys  of  the  body. 
"  Between  ourselves,"  he  whispers  in  his  reader's 
ear,  "  there  are  two  things  which  I  have  always 
seen  to  be  of  singular  accord — supercelestial  opin- 
ions and  subterranean  manners."  By  dying,  after 
a  fashion,  while  we  are  still  alive,  it  is  by  no 
means  difficult  to  avoid  the  trouble  of  living  well. 
The  fact  that  we  are  "  wonderfully  corporeal" 
and  that  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom,  as  he  believes, 
to  keep  the  soul  and  body  harmoniously  together, 
predisposed  Montaigne  against  those  forms  of 
religion  which  do  not  appeal  to  the  senses  and 
the  imagination  as  well  as  to  what  is  purely 
spiritual  in  man.  He  judged  the  Reformed  Faith 
as  one  who  stood  wholly  apart  from  it,  and  who 
knew  not  to  what  the  zeal  of  its  followers  could 
be  ascribed  except  to  the  spirit  of  faction  and 
division :  "  Let  those  who,  of  these  late  years, 
would  erect  for  us  an  exercise  of  religion  so  con- 
templative and  immaterial  not  wonder  if  some  are 
275 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

found  who  think  that  it  would  have  escaped  and 
sHpped  through  their  fingers  were  it  not  main- 
tained among  us  as  a  mark,  a  title,  and  an  in- 
strument of  separation  and  faction  rather  than 
for  its  own  sake."  Were  Montaigne  not  a  Chris- 
tian and  a  Catholic,  he  would  have  chosen,  he 
says,  to  be  a  worshipper  of  the  sun ;  its  grandeur 
and  beauty  address  themselves  to  the  senses,  and 
it  is  so  remote  from  us  that  under  a  visible  image 
we  might  still  adore  it  as  the  Unknown  God. 
When  Numa  attempted  to  direct  the  devotion  of 
the  Roman  people  to  a  purely  spiritual  religion  he 
undertook  a  hopeless  and  useless  task,  the  human 
mind  cannot  maintain  itself  as  it  wanders  in  "  the 
infinite  of  inform  thoughts."  The  Divine  majesty 
for  our  sakes  permitted  itself  in  some  sort  to  be 
circumscribed  in  corporal  limits :  "  His  super- 
natural and  celestial  sacraments  have  signs  of  our 
terrestrial  condition;  the  adoration  of  God  ex- 
presses itself  through  sensible  offices  and  words ; 
for  man  it  is  who  believes  and  who  prays."  Mon- 
taigne could  not  but  be  of  the  opinion  that  the 
sight  of  the  crucifix  and  of  the  paintings  of  a 
suffering  Saviour,  the  ornaments  of  churches,  the 
ceremonious  gestures  of  the  celebrant,  the  voices 
of  singers  attuned  to  devout  thought  and  feeling, 
the  stir  of  all  the  senses,  infused  into  the  souls  of 
the  pious  crowd  a  warmth  of  religious  passion 
which  had  its  excellent  uses.  Sensitive  himself 
276 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

to  all  sweet  odours,  which  clung  to  his  person  in 
a  peculiar  degree,  he  approved  the  use  of  incense 
and  perfumes  in  churches — though  simple  and 
natural  odours  pleased  him  best — as  ancient  and 
almost  universal  means  of  cheer  and  refreshment 
which  awaken  and  purify  the  senses  and  render 
us  more  apt  for  contemplation.  He  could  not 
hear  without  emotion  an  ode  of  Horace  or  Catul- 
lus sung  by  fair,  young  lips;  the  voice  was  for 
him,  as  an  old  philosopher  had  called  it,  "  the 
flower  of  beauty".  And  why  should  not  all  beauty 
subserve  the  devout  spirit?  What  soul  of  man  is 
there  so  stubborn,  he  asks,  that  will  not  be  touched 
with  some  reverence  in  considering  the  sombre 
vastness  of  our  churches,  the  variety  of  ornaments 
and  order  of  our  ceremonies,  in  hearing  the  re- 
ligious tones  of  our  organs,  and  the  harmony,  so 
tempered  and  so  devout,  of  voices.  "  Even  those 
who  enter  in  a  scoffing  spirit  feel  a  certain  shiver 
run  through  their  hearts,  and  a  certain  awe  which 
bids  them  hold  their  opinion  in  distrust."  * 

Montaigne  had  another  ground  of  hostility  to 
the  Reformed  Faith  beside  the  fact  that  it  com- 
mended to  men  what  he  regarded  as  an  "  incor- 
poreal" religion ;  it  seemed  to  him  to  invite  minds 
that  were  ill-qualified  for  such  an  enterprise  to  be- 
come judges  of  Divine  truth.   He  held  that  if  such 

*  Essays,  IT,  12. 

^77 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

truth  is  to  be  received,  it  must  be  received  upon 
authority ;  we  have  no  faculties  for  speculation  in 
things  above  our  modest  sphere.  In  morals, 
which  really  interested  him  and  on  which  he  knew 
that  the  conduct  of  life  depends,  Montaigne  would 
by  no  means  renounce  his  rights  of  private  judg- 
ment. As  for  the  Christian  Faith,  however  much 
he  reverenced  it,  however  he  may  have  enjoyed 
the  artistry  of  defending  it  by  an  ingenious  dia- 
lectic, it  did  not  penetrate  and  possess  his  nature ; 
he  found  no  great  difficulty — to  use  a  rude  ex- 
pression— in  kicking  it  upstairs,  or — to  use  a  re- 
spectful expression — in  placing  it  high  above  the 
meddling  of  the  human  intellect ;  Divine  doctrine, 
"  as  queen  and  regent  of  the  rest",  is  to  keep  her 
queenly  state  apart,  there  to  be  sovereign  and  not 
suffragan  or  subsidiary.  It  discomposed  Mon- 
taigne to  see  the  crowd  bandy  to  and  fro  in  rash 
debate  the  Unknown  God.  Most  men  are  Chris- 
tians and  Catholics,  as  one  born  in  Perigord  is 
a  Perigourdin ;  and  this  at  least  was  better  than 
to  make  the  mysteries  of  our  religion  the  sport 
and  recreation  of  eager  disputants.  That  the 
Psalms  of  David  should  be  made  popular  in 
French  verse,  and  sung  by  a  'prentice  in  his  shop 
among  his  frivolous  thoughts,  and  as  an  exercise 
of  his  lungs,  seemed  to  Montaigne  more  impious 
than  pious.  The  Bible,  the  holy  book  of  mys- 
teries, was  not  a  book  to  be  tumbled  up  and  down 
278 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

a  hall  or  a  kitchen.  It  should  be  reverently  ap- 
proached with  a  Sursum  corda  as  a  preface.  He 
smiled  at  the  notion  that  a  translation  of  its  words 
would  make  it  intelligible  to  the  vulgar  reader; 
rather,  he  feared,  by  understanding  a  fragment 
such  a  reader  would  more  profoundly  misconceive 
the  purport  of  the  whole.  That  women  and  chil- 
dren should  undertake  to  teach  old  and  experi- 
enced men  ecclesiastical  polity  was  indeed  gro- 
tesque. As  to  himself,  in  his  Essays  he  proposed 
merely  human  fantasies,  fantasies  merely  his  own, 
as  children  present  their  exercises  and  essays,  not 
to  instruct  but  to  be  instructed. 

In  all  that  Montaigne  says  there  is  an  air  of 
devoutness,  and  for  himself  it  was  more  than  an 
air  or  an  attitude.  He  wrote  sincerely;  he  was 
not  a  sceptic  grinning  behind  a  mask;  but  his 
form  of  piety  was  hardly  consistent  with  his  gen- 
eral principles.  If  I  contradict  myself,  he  might 
have  replied,  well,  then,  I  contradict  myself;  but 
that  is  hardly  a  satisfactory  answer  for  any  one 
except  the  speaker.  While  he  would  keep  the 
body  and  soul  harmoniously  together  as  mutually 
helpful  companions,  he  would  divide  the  soul  it- 
self into  two  separate  compartments — the  com- 
partment of  reason  and  the  compartment  ai  faith. 
Each  was  a  genuine  portion  of  the  entire  man, 
and  he  would  have  been  a  different  human  being 
if  either  had  been  annihilated.  But  a  faith  which 
279 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

is  held,  as  it  were,  in  reserve,  which  does  not 
permeate  the  whole  body  of  beliefs,  which  does 
not  penetrate  the  whole  character,  is  a  singularly 
artificial  product.  Montaigne  the  moralist  walks 
on  the  substantial  earth,  and  Plutarch  and  Seneca 
are  companions  good  enough  for  all  his  needs ;  or 
he  rests  his  head,  like  a  peasant  or  a  philosopher, 
on  Mother  Earth,  only  interposing  as  a  soft,  sane, 
and  easy  pillow  the  ignorance  and  incuriosity 
which  suit  a  well-ordered  head;  his  faith  floats 
aloft  in  a  balloon  attached  to  the  ground  by  a 
sure  but  slender  cord;  by  and  by  he  enters  the 
car  of  his  balloon,  reason  suffers  for  a  moment 
from  vertigo,  and  is  presently  asphyxiated  as 
Montaigne,  the  believer,  approaches  the  peace  of 
the  Divine  mysteries  of  religion.  The  division  of 
his  own  nature  made  by  the  ascetic  who  sunders 
the  soul  from  the  body  is  less  destructive  of  unity 
than  such  a  division  as  this — a  division  of  the 
soul  itself. 

How  independent  was  the  pagan  philosopher, 
who  constituted  three-fourths  of  Montaigne,  from 
the  Christian,  who  sailed  in  the  car  of  the  balloon, 
may  be  seen  from  a  glance  at  his  thoughts  on 
repentance,  and  his  thoughts  on  death.  With 
respect  to  the  sense  of  sin  and  the  sorrow  for  sin 
Montaigne's  book  may  deserve  the  title  given  to 
'it  by  Cardinal  Du  Perron — the  breviary  of 
honnetes  gens;  it  is  not  the  breviary  of  Chris- 
280 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

tians.  "  Be  pleased  to  excuse  what  I  often  say," 
Montaigne  writes,  "  that  I  rarely  repent,  and 
that  my  conscience  is  satisfied  with  itself,  not  as 
the  conscience  of  an  angel,  or  of  a  horse,  but  as 
the  conscience  of  a  man."  *  The  Christian  enters 
swiftly  and  adds  the  qualification  that  he  speaks — 
and  here  Montaigne  avows  his  sincerity — in  sub- 
mission to  the  accepted  and  legitimate  beliefs  on 
this  subject.  That  is  to  say,  the  pagan  philoso- 
pher lifts  his  cap  in  all  reverence  to  the  Cross, 
replaces  it,  and  moves  forward.  Looking  back 
over  his  past  life,  he  found  that  on  the  whole  it 
had  been  lived  in  conformity  with  Nature;  he 
had  not  flown  high,  but  he  had  walked  in  an 
orderly  fashion ;  he  saw,  amid  all  its  diversity,  a 
certain  unity  in  his  life — "  almost  from  my  birth 
it  has  been  one;  the  same  inclination,  the  same 
route,  the  same  force."  He  found  it  very  hard 
to  imagine  any  sudden  change  of  heart  or  life. 
He  could  conceive  a  desire  for  a  complete  altera- 
tion or  reformation  of  his  being,  but  this  was  no 
more  repentance,  he  says,  than  if  he  were  dissatis- 
fied because  he  was  not  an  angel  or  Cato.  On 
the  whole  he  could  do  no  better  than  he  had  done ; 
in  the  same  circumstances  he  would  again  act  as 
he  had  acted ;  it  may  be  that  he  was  stained 
throughout  with  a  universal  tincture,  but  there 

*  Essays,  III,  2. 
281 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

were  no  definite  spots;  if  he  were  to  repent  at  all, 
it  must  be  not  a  particular,  but  a  universal  repent- 
ance, and  he  was  well  pleased  to  be  a  man.  True, 
he  had  now  and  again  erred  seriously,  but  this 
was  not  through  lack  of  prudent  deliberation;  it 
was  rather  through  want  of  good  luck ;  the  events 
could  not  have  been  other  than  they  were;  they 
belonged  to  the  large  course  of  the  universe,  to 
the  entire  enchainment  of  Stoical  causes.  Cer- 
tainly the  voice  that  speaks  to  us  is  not  the  voice 
of  St.  Augustine,  nor  the  voice  of  St.  Paul. 
Montaigne  never  could  have  known  Pascal's  tears 
of  joy,  for  he  had  never  known  the  tears  of 
anguish.  But  he  is  one  of  the  tribe  of  honnetcs 
gens,  and  the  breviary  is  a  book  of  good  faith. 
He  writes  with  admirable  sincerity,  and  will  not 
budge  an  inch  from  the  facts  of  his  consciousness 
to  construct  a  romance  of  religious  experience. 

The  thought  of  death  was  constantly  with  Mon- 
taigne from  his  early  years.     In  the  midst  of  his 
youthful  pleasures  it  haunted  him  as  a  skeleton 
at  the  banquet  of  life.     He  was  not  melancholy 
by  temperament,  but  he  was  meditative  and  he 
held  hard  by  realities ;  death  was  of  all  things  the 
I  most  certain ;    life  appeared  to  him  but  as  "  a 
i  flash  in  the  infinite  course  of  an  eternal  night". 
The  day  of  death  was  for  him  "  the  master  day" ; 
then  no  counterfeiting  would  avail ;  then  we  must 
i  speak  out  plain — "il  fault  parler  frangois'\     Pie 

282 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

was  curious  to  learn  how  this  man  and  that  con- 
fronted it;  perhaps  they  did  not  know  that  they 
were  dying;  perhaps  they  were  of  the  common 
opinion  that  so  great  a  revolution  of  Nature  could 
not  come  to  pass  without  a  solemn  consultation  of 
the  stars ;  and  yet,  after  all,  each  of  us  is  but  one, 
and  our  petty  interests  do  not  disturb  the  heavens. 
And  how  little  we  can  prepare  ourselves  for  the 
great  act;  we  cannot  rehearse  that  scene  even 
once;  we  are  all  apprentices  when  we  come  to 
die.  Yet  how  can  we  live  happily  for  an  hour  un- 
less we  have  learnt  a  contempt  of  death?  The 
remedy  of  the  vulgar  crowd  is  simply  not  to  think 
of  it ;  but  from  w' hat  embruted  stupidity,  inquires 
Montaigne,  can  such  gross  blindness  be  derived? 
No — we  should  keep  death  forever  in  view;  we 
should  always  be  booted  for  the  journey  and  ready 
to  depart ;  we  should  at  once  live  and  detach  our- 
selves from  life.  "  Let  death  find  me  planting  my 
cabbages,  unconcerned  by  its  coming,  and  still 
less  concerned  for  my  unfinished  garden."  In 
his  premeditations  upon  death  Montaigne  forti- 
fied his  spirit  with  every  consideration  except 
those  which  are  the  hope  and  joy  of  a  Christian. 
We  may  find  it,  he  thought,  less  formidable  than 
it  appears  in  anticipation ;  at  all  events  it  can  hap- 
pen only  once,  and  nothing  that  happens  only  once 
can  be  a  serious  grievance;  death  is  part  of  a 
universal  order;  if  we  have  lived  a  day,  we  have 
283 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

seen  all  and  should  be  ready  to  depart.  These, 
he  tells  us,  are  the  good  lessons  of  our  mother 
Nature.  For  a  moment,  indeed,  he  speaks  of 
death  as  the  entrance  to  another  life,  and  he 
speaks  elsewhere  of  the  belief  of  the  mortality  of 
the  soul  as  an  unsocial  belief — one  which  isolates 
us  from  the  hope  of  companionship  with  those  we 
love.  But  he  is  not  penetrated  and  possessed  by 
the  Christian  thought  that  the  sting  of  death  has 
been  taken  away  forever,  that  life  has  become  the 
victor.  In  the  essay  on  A  Custom  of  the  Isle 
of  Cea  he  regards  death  as  the  means  of  escape 
from  ills  of  this  world,  and  studies  the  conditions 
under  which  suicide  becomes  legitimate.  His 
ideal  of  the  conduct  of  life,  as  death  makes  its 
approaches,  was  to  look  at  death  steadily,  without 
astonishment,  if  possible  without  concern,  and  to 
carry  on  freely  the  action  and  processes  of  life 
up  to  the  final  moment,  to  live  as  long  as  possible 
and  as  far  as  possible  into  the  depth  of  the  shadow 
of  death. 

As  Montaigne  advanced  in  years  his  mood 
changed.  The  thought  of  death  still  followed 
him.  Seldom  on  his  travels  did  he  come  to  an 
inn  without  thinking  whether  or  not  he  could 
there  die  at  his  ease.  Perhaps  death  could  be 
made  more  than  easy,  perhaps  it  could  be  made 
even  voluptuous;  at  least  he  might  aspire  to 
something  between  the  death  of  a  wise  man  and 
284 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

that  of  a  fool.  An  emperor  should  die  standing-, 
and  why  should  not  every  gallant  man  ?  But  the 
sentence  seemed  to  him  to  be  touched  with  ex- 
aggeration, and  he  struck  it  out.  After  all,  it  is 
best,  he  thought,  to  die  simply  and  modestly,  to 
have  done  with  premeditations  of  death,  to  have 
done  with  the  consolations  of  philosophy,  and  to 
let  that  unimportant  quarter  of  an  hour  come  in 
its  own  way  and  come  when  it  will.  In  his  earlier 
days  he  had  thought  of  the  peasant's  indifference 
to  dying  until  it  is  actually  at  hand,  and  he  de- 
cided that  it  was  better  to  play  the  philosopher. 
Now  he  would  revert  towards  the  peasant.  He  be- 
lieved that  as  death  is  troubled  by  the  care  of  life, 
so  life  is  troubled  by  the  care  of  death.  The  pre- 
cept of  true  philosophy  is  not  Memento  mori,  but 
Remember  to  live.  Have  we  known  how  to  live 
steadfastly  and  tranquilly,  then  we  shall  know 
how  to  die  in  like  manner.  *'  If  you  know  not 
how  to  die,  never  trouble  yourself ;  Nature  will  in 
a  moment  fully  and  sufficiently  instruct  you ;  she 
will  exactly  do  that  business  for  you;  take  you 
no  care  for  it."  This  may  be  excellent  counsel  for 
honnetes  gens;  death  will  bandage  our  eyes,  and 
somehow  we  shall  creep  past;  meanwhile  let  us 
live  sanely  and  well.  But  such  a  death  as  ]\Ion- 
taigne  imagines  is  untouched  by  any  ray  of  light 
from  the  great  Christian  morning. 

And  yet  the  longest  and  most  elaborate  of  his 
285 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

essays,  in  itself  almost  a  volume,  the  Apology 
for  Raimond  de  Sehonde,  is  a  defence  of  the 
Christian  Faith.  Nor  did  Montaigne  neglect  the 
practices  of  the  Catholic  Church.  In  his  travels 
it  was  his  custom  on  arriving  at  a  town,  when 
circumstances  made  it  possible,  to  be  present  at 
the  mass.  He  thought  that  the  Lord's  prayer  can- 
not be  too  frequently  in  use ;  he  had  great  venera- 
tion for  the  sign  of  the  Cross,  and  observed  it 
even  on  slight  occasions  if  to  do  so  fell  in  with 
the  custom.  "  There  is  nothing  so  easy,  so  sweet, 
and  so  favourable,"  he  writes,  "  as  the  Divine 
Law ;  she  invites  us  to  herself,  faulty  and  de- 
testable as  we  are;  extends  her  arms  to  us  and 
receives  us  in  her  bosom,  foul  and  polluted  as  we 
are,  and  as  we  needs  must  be  in  the  days  to 
come."  He  would  not  limit  the  Divine  power  in 
Nature  by  the  denial  of  miracles.  He  thought  at 
one  time,  indeed,  to  decrassify  his  religious  prac- 
tice by  eliminating  certain  rules  and  observances 
that  were  distasteful  to  him ;  but  afterwards  he 
recognised  that  entire  submission  of  self-will  was 
required  and  ought  to  be  accorded.  At  the  shrine 
of  Our  Lady  at  Loreto  he  placed  four  figures 
wrought  in  silver — those  of  the  Virgin,  of  his 
wife,  of  his  daughter,  and  of  himself.  He  died 
with  hands  devoutly  clasped  as  the  priest  was  in 
the  act  of  elevating  the  Host. 

The  Essays  are  a  book  of  good  faith,  and  Mon- 
2Ze 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

taigne's  apology  for  revealed  religion  is  not  a 
mere  piece  of  artifice.  It  would  not  be  unfair, 
however,  to  call  its  dialectic  a  work  of  art.  He 
dismisses  Sebonde's  "  quintessence  drawn  from 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas"  with  the  remark  that  it  is 
as  creditable  a  performance  as  other  like  defences 
of  revelation  which  invoke  the  aid  of  human 
reason;  it  is  laudable  to  accommodate,  as  far  as 
we  can,  our  natural  capacities  to  the  Divine  truth ; 
it  is  desirable  to  accompany  our  faith  with  the 
reason  which  we  possess,  poor  though  that  reason 
may  be;  such  arguments  as  those  of  the  old  Pro- 
fessor at  Toulouse  may  in  some  degree  help  to 
qualify  us  for  receiving  the  grace  of  faith.  For 
his  own  part,  Montaigne  chooses  to  adopt  a  more 
ingenious  and,  he  hopes,  a  more  effective  line 
of  defence;  he  will  confound  man's  understand- 
ing before  the  voice  of  God;  he  will  build  a 
rampart  for  the  city  of  God  from  the  ruined  frag- 
ments of  human  reason ;  he  will  make  scepticism 
subserve  belief.  Or,  to  adopt  his  own  metaphor, 
he  will  resort  to  the  last  and  most  hazardous,  yet 
the  surest  trick  of  fence ;  he  will  make  a  desperate 
thrust  which,  in  disarming  the  adversary,  will 
force  the  challenger  to  drop  his  own  weapon — 
a  trick  of  fence  to  be  practiced  only  in  the  last 
extremity.  The  finest  use  of  human  reason,  ac- 
cording to  the  paradox  of  Montaigne,  is  to  de- 
prive reason — at  least  in  this  province — of  its 
287 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

uses.  And  we  cannot  but  perceive  that  the 
obedient  son  of  the  Church  enjoys  above  all 
things  the  dexterity  of  his  feat;  there  is  some- 
thing of  high  humour  in  turning  the  edge  of 
human  judgment  against  its  master;  one  who 
is  convinced  will  surely  cry  with  Dumain,  of 
Navarre,  "  Proceeded  well,  to  stop  all  good  pro- 
ceeding!" Montaigne,  we  may  conjecture,  had 
never  more  of  human  pride  than  in  his  desperate 
polemic  against  the  pride  of  humanity. 

His  zeal  as  an  artist  in  dialectic  in  some  degree 
defeats  itself.  He  abandons  his  accustomed  spirit 
of  moderation  and  for  once  becomes  extravagant ; 
and  his  extravagance  does  injury  to  his  art.  If 
he  had  confined  his  attack  on  human  reason  to 
reason  as  employed  in  the  spheres  of  theology 
and  of  metaphysics  his  case  would  have  been 
stronger ;  but,  with  an  eagerness  characteristic  of 
Montaigne  when  thoroughly  roused,  he  will  have 
all  or  nothing.  His  own  convictions  within  the 
area  of  human  life  and  moral  prudence  were  many 
and  unhesitating;  he  was  no  Pyrrhonist  here,  and 
he  had  great  confidence  in  his  judgment.  The 
entire  collection  of  the  Essays  is  a  refutation  of 
many  pages  of  this,  the  central  piece ;  and  it  must 
be  confessed  that  many  pages  are  no  better  than 
a  chaos  of  ill-digested  facts,  or  of  fictions  assumed 
to  be  facts  for  the  purpose  of  argument.  The 
general  result  of  his  discussion  is  not  to  confirm 
288 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

revealed  religion,  but  to  confirm  the  spirit  of  ac- 
quiescence in  whatever  creed  we  happen  to  be 
born  and  brought  up.  A  Mohammedan  could 
apply  all  the  pleadings  of  the  Apology  for  Rai- 
mond  dc  Schondc  to  justify  his  faith  in  Moham- 
med; a  Buddhist  could  apply  them  to  justify  his 
faith  in  Buddha.  Christianity  might  well  look 
with  suspicion  upon  its  self-constituted  champion. 
Having  eloquently  set  forth  the  insignificance 
of  the  place  occupied  by  man  in  the  vast  universe, 
man  whose  conditions  are  governed  by  the  stars, 
and  who  except  through  obedience  can  have  no 
commerce  with  the  heavens,  Montaigne  proceeds 
to  demonstrate  that  he  has  no  real  advantage  over 
the  brutes  that  perish,  the  most  ugly  and  abject 
of  whom  he  most  nearly  resembles.  It  is  true 
that  he  is  cursed  with  imagination  more  than 
they,  and  has  created  for  himself  unnatural  desires 
and  a  swarm  of  vices  unknown  to  them.  The  re- 
morseless critic  strips  man  to  the  shirt  and  dis- 
covers him  to  be  but  a  poor,  bare,  forked  animal. 
As  for  his  knowledge,  does  it  exempt  him  from 
evils?  Or  rather  is  not  the  opinion  of  wisdom 
his  special  plague?  "  I  have  seen  in  my  time  a 
hundred  artisans,  a  hundred  labourers  wiser  and 
happier  than  the  rectors  of  the  University.  .  .  . 
A  thousand  poor  simple  women  (mille  femme- 
lettes)  have  lived  in  a  village  a  life  more  equable, 
more  sweet,  more  constant  than  that  of  Cicero." 
19  289 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

A  confession  of  our  ignorance,  a  habit  of  sim- 
plicity and  submission — these  are  in  truth  our 
proper  virtues,  and  those  which  render  us  apt 
receivers  of  divine  knowledge.  There  follows 
Montaigne's  impressive  record  of  the  contrarieties 
and  contradictions  of  learned  opinion  on  all  the 
highest  subjects  of  human  speculation — an  end- 
less jangle  of  philosophic  brains.  Insensate  man! 
he  who  cannot  fashion  one  flesh-worm  and  who 
will  fashion  gods  by  the  dozen!  Let  him  climb 
to  the  summit  of  Mount  Cenis,  he  will  be  no 
nearer  heaven  than  if  he  were  at  the  bottom  of 
the  sea.  With  an  admirable  irony,  which  was  en- 
joyed by  Bossuet  and  remembered  by  Pope, 
Montaigne's  goose  enters  on  the  scene  to  ex- 
pound a  goose's  philosophy  of  Nature — there  is 
nothing  which  the  vault  of  heaven  regards  so 
favourably  as  a  goose ;  she  is  the  darling  of  Na- 
ture; man  is  her  provider,  her  host,  her  servitor. 
But  it  is  not  only  of  things  in  the  heavens  that  we 
are  ignorant;  we  know  nothing  of  the  human 
soul,  and  little  indeed — witness  the  myriad  errors 
of  physicians — of  the  human  body.  Such  genuine 
knowledge  as  we  may  possess  of  these  comes  to 
[  us,  as  it  were,  by  accident.  Most  of  what  we 
1  style  knowledge  is  but  opinion,  growing  and 
withering  and  falling  away,  and  forever  replaced 
by  new  opinion  as  transitory.  Even  the  senses 
themselves  are  weak  and   uncertain,   subject  to 

290 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

illusion,  and  imposing  their  illusions  upon  the  un- 
derstanding. We  need  some  "  judicatory  instru- 
ment" by  which  to  verify  the  declarations  of  our 
several  faculties,  which  instrument  would  itself 
need  to  be  verified,  and  so  we  should  enter  on  a 
process  which  runs  into  the  infinite.  It  is  God 
alone  who  can  save  us  from  ourselves  and  bring 
us  to  the  resting-place  of  His  truth. 

Such  reduced  to  miniature  proportions  is  Mon- 
taigne's apology  for  revealed  religion.  His  temper 
of  suspended  judgment  made  belief  difficult  and 
disbelief  no  less  difficult.  At  one  time  he  dis- 
missed as  fables  the  tales  of  witchcraft,  ghosts, 
prognostications,  and  the  like.  Afterwards  he 
thought  it  more  intellectually  prudent  to  suspend 
his  judgment  and  consider  in  each  case  the  evi- 
dence for  alleged  facts.  He  was  not  able  to  reject 
exact  testimony  even  for  a  modern  miracle.  But, 
being  slow  to  move,  he  inclined  a  little  towards 
the  solid  and  the  probable.  He  would  not  be 
threatened  or  cufifed  into  credulity,  even  though 
it  was  orthodox.  "  How  much  more  natural  and 
more  probable  it  seems  to  me,"  he  says,  '*  that 
two  men  should  lie  than  that  one  man  in  twelve 
hours  should  pass,  even  with  the  wind,  from  the 
Orient  to  the  Occident ;  how  much  more  natural, 
that  our  understanding  should  be  borne  away 
from  its  place  by  the  volubility  of  our  disordered 
mind  than  that  one  of  us  should  be  carried,  flesh 
291 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

and  bones  as  we  are,  by  a  strange  spirit  up  the 
shaft  of  a  chimney."  But  to  accept  all  the  truths 
of  divine  revelation  was  an  escape  to  harbour 
from  the  troubled  waves  of  human  opinion ;  and 
to  observe  dutifully  all  the  practices  of  the  Church 
was  an  easy  burden,  because  it  was  traditional 
and  customary,  and  was  at  the  same  time  the 
submission  proper  for  a  frail  and  erring  will  to 
the  divine  ecclesiastical  polity. 

Perhaps  his  faith  wavered ;  perhaps  he  could 
not  really  check  the  advance  of  his  questioning 
spirit  at  the  point  which  seemed  most  convenient. 
The  higher  souls  alone,  he  thought,  know  an 
assured  belief.  He  at  least,  imperfect  believer  as 
he  was,  had  provided,  by  his  ingenious  artistry, 
a  defence  of  the  faith,  unconceived  by  them.  He 
could  imagine  their  happier  state,  and  he  would 
in  his  outward  conduct  conform  to  all  the  duties 
which  such  a  state  implies.  Was  he  a  sceptic? 
Perhaps  so,  at  times,  in  the  back-shop  of  his  mind. 
But  he  was  also  a  Perigourdin,  a  Christian,  a 
Catholic,  a  conservative,  and  as  such  he  would 
behave.  It  was  as  if  the  tower  of  Montaigne 
were  an  allegory  of  the  fabric  of  his  soul.  Below 
was  the  chapel  with  its  altar,  where  the  mass 
might  be  devoutly  celebrated.  Up  aloft  was  the 
bell  which  at  the  appointed  hour  rang  its  Ave 
Maria.  Below  was  the  region  of  ceremonial 
practice.  Above  was  the  region  of  spiritual  faith, 
292 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    THE    ESSAYS 

but  the  place  was  not  quite  habitable.  Between 
the  two  was  the  library,  where  Montaigne  spent 
most  of  his  days,  and  most  of  the  hours  of  each 
day.  It  was  the  region  of  moral  prudence.  In 
the  library  he  could  think  his  own  thoughts,  or 
gaze  at  its  beams  and  joists  and  ponder  the  sen- 
tences of  a  philosopher's  creed ;  here  he  could  be 
wise  with  a  human  wisdom,  and  Seneca  and 
Plutarch — not  the  fathers  of  the  Church — were 
his  companions. 


293 


CHAPTER    X 

MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

The  volume  of  Montaigne's  Essays,  a  thick 
octavo  consisting  of  two  books,  was  published 
by  Simon  Millanges  at  Bordeaux  in  1580.  When, 
eight  years  later,  the  Third  Book  was  added,  the 
earlier  books  were  augmented  by  a  large  mass 
of  insertions,  some  of  which  impair  the  original 
design,  if  we  may  speak  of  a  design,  of  certain 
of  the  essays.  The  last  essay  of  the  Second  Book, 
written  shortly  before  the  date  of  publication,  that 
on  the  Resemblance  of  Children  to  Fathers  tells 
of  his  having  suffered  during  some  eighteen 
months  from  the  painful  malady — "  nephritic 
colic" — which  he  believed  he  had  inherited  from 
Pierre  Eyquem,  though  it  had  not  declared  itself 
until  about  his  forty-fifth  year.  He  had  inherited 
also  a  profound  distrust  of  the  treatment  of  six- 
teenth-century physicians  and  a  strong  distaste 
for  their  nostrums.  But  he  hoped  for  some  bene- 
fit from  such  natural  waters,  taken  internally  and 
used  as  baths,  as  were  supposed  to  be  suitable  to 
the  ailment  which  afflicted  him.  Change  of  scene 
and  variety  of  company  would  at  least  help  to 
distract  from  himself  one  whose  curiosity  was 
294 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

boundless.  There  was  always  a  certain  inevitable 
pang  in  leaving  home,  in  parting  from  his  wife 
and  daughter,  in  quitting  his  chair  in  the  library. 
But  home  had  also  its  vexations  from  which  it 
was  pleasant  for  a  time  to  escape ;  and  the  politi- 
cal condition  of  France  was  full  of  troubles  which 
Montaigne  would  gladly  forget.  He  had  no  heirs 
for  whom  it  was  necessary  to  save;  he  might  in- 
dulge himself  in  his  desire  to  see  something  of 
the  world;  and  he  knew  that  the  domestic  econ- 
omy of  the  chateau  was  safe  under  the  prudent 
conduct  of  his  wife.  Conjugal  friendship  might 
even  be  increased  by  a  period  of  absence;  it  is 
a  poor  kind  of  affection  which  requires  perpetual 
neighbourhood.  He  could  ride  for  many  hours 
without  fatigue.  If  it  rained,  he  enjoyed  the  rain, 
and  though  in  some  things  he  was  fastidious,  he 
could  dabble  in  the  dirt  like  a  duck.  All  skies 
were  alike  to  him.  And  when  he  thought  of 
death  as  possible,  he  added  the  thought  that  all 
places — the  road,  the  tow-boat,  the  inn — are  good 
enough  to  die  in.  He  loved  variety,  diversity,  the 
observation  of  strange  manners  and  customs. 
Travel  was  a  school  of  education.  If  he  was  old, 
he  was  not  too  old  to  learn,  and  old  age  is  the 
time  when  we  have  a  right  to  please  ourselves. 
Yes — he  would  travel,  and  he  would  not  bind 
himself  strictly  to  a  route  or  a  date;  he  would 
travel  through  country  and  town  as  he  travelled 
295 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

through   books — wherever    the    incHnation    took 
him. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
about  one  hundred  and  eighty  years  after  the 
death  of  Montaigne,  Canon  Prunis  was  engaged 
in  collecting  materials  for  a  history  of  Perigord. 
He  visited  the  chateau  of  Montaigne,  then  in  the 
possession  of  the  Count  de  Segur,  a  descendant 
of  the  Essayist's  daughter.  They  showed  him  an 
old  coffer  containing  papers  which  had  long  since 
been  laid  aside.  He  rummaged  and  discovered 
among  these  papers  the  manuscript  journal  of  The 
Travels  of  Montaigne,  a  volume  in  folio  of  two 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  pages.  The  opening 
pages  were  wanting;  somewhat  over  a  third  of 
the  manuscript  was  in  the  handwriting  of  a  ser- 
vant who  acted  as  Montaigne's  secretary  and  who 
wrote  at  his  master's  dictation,  but  in  the  third 
person;  the  remainder  was  in  the  master's  auto- 
graph ;  the  greater  portion  was  in  French — show- 
ing, as  do  the  Essays,  the  Gasconisms  of  Mon- 
taigne. While  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca  he  determined 
to  continue  his  journal  in  Italian — such  Italian 
as  he  was  able  to  write;  and  just  before  the  close 
he  again  returned  to  his  native  tongue.  The 
manuscript  was  deposited  in  the  King's  Library, 
and  was  open  to  inspection;  it  was  carefully  ex- 
amined by  the  librarian,  M.  Capperonnier,  and  by 
others,  and  was  pronounced  to  be  genuine.  In 
296 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

1774  it  was  published,  in  quarto  and  in  a  smaller 
form,  at  Rome  and  Paris,  under  the  editorship  of 
an  industrious  man  of  letters,  Meusnier  de  Quer- 
lon.  It  has  been  in  our  own  day  republished  as 
an  important  document  for  the  knowledge  of  Italy 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  by  Professor  Alessandro 
D'Ancona,  who  has  added  a  large  body  of 
scholarly  annotations.  The  original  manuscript 
has  unhappily  disappeared.  It  was  evidently 
written  with  no  view  to  publication;  the  Italian 
portion  may  have  been  composed  not  only  as  a 
record  of  travel  but  as  an  exercise  in  the  lan- 
guage; the  portion  in  French  is  sometimes  a 
series  of  jottings  ill-connected  and  set  down  with 
no  attempt  at  literary  grace;  the  details  of  Mon- 
taigne's state  of  health  are  such  as  could  have 
interested  no  one  but  himself.  Many  of  these 
entries  of  an  invalid  have  been  discreetly  omitted 
by  the  latest  English  translator. 

On  June  22,  1580,  Montaigne  bade  farewell  to 
his  wife  and  daughter,  who,  as  it  proved,  were 
not  to  see  him  again  until  the  close  of  November 
in  the  following  year.  He  journeyed  to  Paris 
and  thence  to  the  camp  outside  La  Fere,  where 
the  royal  army,  under  Marshal  Matignon,  was 
conducting  a  siege.  According  to  the  report  of 
a  contemporary,  which  may  be  more  than  a 
legend,  a  presentation  copy  of  the  Essays  was  gra- 
ciously received  by  King  Henri  III.,  who  de- 
297 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

clared  that  it  pleased  him  much.  "  Sire,"  re- 
sponded Montaigne,  "  it  follows  then  that  I  am 
pleasing  to  your  Majesty,  since  my  book  is  pleas- 
ing, for  it  contains  nothing  but  a  discourse  con- 
cerning my  life  and  my  actions."  Having  fol- 
lowed to  Soissons,  amid  lamenting  crowds,  the 
body  of  Philibert  de  Gramont,  la  belle  C orisande' s 
husband,  who  had  lost  an  arm  in  the  siege  and 
had  died  of  the  wound,  Montaigne  set  forth  on 
his  travels.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  young 
brother  Bertrand,  Lord  of  Mattecoulon,  the 
Seigneur  de  Cazalis,  probably  a  kinsman  by  mar- 
riage, and  the  Seigneur  du  Hautoi,  a  gentleman 
of  Lorraine.  At  Beaumont  the  party  was  joined 
by  the  Seigneur  d'Estissac,  doubtless  a  son  of  the 
lady  to  whom  the  eighth  essay  of  the  Second  Book 
is  addressed.  The  young  man  was  the  bearer  of 
letters  of  commendation  from  the  King  and  the 
Queen  Mother  to  the  Duke  of  Este.  The  troop, 
riding  on  horseback,  was  followed  by  valets, 
lackeys,  and  muleteers. 

The  youngest  member  of  the  party  could  not 
have  ridden  with  more  of  quicksilver  in  his  nerves 
than  Montaigne,  who  was  not  far  from  his  fiftieth 
year,  and  who  from  time  to  time  was  subject  to 
acute  attacks  of  what  he  terms  his  "  colic".  He 
rode  with  an  open  mind,  ready  to  enter  into  every 
pleasure,  prepared  to  fall  in  with  all  the  ways  and 
manners  of  foreign  places,  disposed  to  tliink  well 
298 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

of  humanity,  though  it  might  differ  from  what 
was  famiHar  in  Perigord  or  in  Paris,  full  of  an 
untiring  intellectual  curiosity.  His  feeling  for 
external  nature  was  not  that  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  he  enjoyed  a  fair  prospect  more,  and 
was  horrified  by  a  mountain  less,  than  many  of 
his  contemporaries.  His  feeling  for  art,  except 
for  the  literary  art,  had  been  little  cultivated ;  he 
was  not  without  a  certain  interest  in  sculpture, 
but  the  debased  ingenuities  of  the  declining  Re- 
naissance impressed  him  as  much  as  the  statues 
of  Michael  Angelo  in  the  Medici  Chapel,  which 
he  mentions  with  passing  praise;  concerning  the 
great  Italian  painters  he  is  almost  silent;  Titian 
and  Tintoretto  did  not  interest  him  at  Venice, 
nor  Raphael  at  Rome.  Pie  had  an  imaginative 
sense  of  the  greatness  of  the  ancient  world,  as  it 
may  be  guessed  at  through  some  vast  crumbling 
fragment  or  some  disinterred  relic ;  but  he  was 
not  in  any  high  degree  skilled  as  an  antiquary  or 
archaeologist.  His  proper  game,  as  he  might 
have  called  it,  was  man — man  in  his  diversity  of 
creeds,  ceremonies,  opinions,  politics,  civic  and 
domestic  arrangements,  with  all  the  devices  which 
he  has  invented  for  the  splendour,  the  comfort, 
and  the  convenience  of  life.  Now  Montaigne 
holds  converse  with  some  learned  doctor  on  the 
theory  of  the  sacraments,  and  now  he  inspects 
with  interest  a  smoke-jack  or  a  spit.  Now  he 
299 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

dines  with  a  cardinal  or  a  grand  duke,  and 
studies  the  manners  of  the  great;  and  he  is  just 
as  well  pleased  when  mine  host  of  "  The  Grape" 
at  Miilhausen,  who  has  returned  from  presiding 
at  the  Town  Council,  pours  out  the  wine  for  his 
guests,  and  discourses,  unabashed  and  unpreten- 
tious, of  his  condition  and  way  of  living.  The 
traveller  had  none  of  that  "  taciturn  and  incom- 
municable prudence"  which  is  proper  to  the  way- 
farer in  foreign  parts  who  carries  his  native  preju- 
dices and  ill  manners  with  him,  "  defending  him- 
self from  the  contagion  of  an  unknown  air".  He, 
a  Frenchman  to  the  core,  was  also  a  cosmopolitan, 
and  chose  rather  to  consort  with  strangers,  from 
whom  he  could  learn  something  new,  than  with 
his  own  countrymen  who  found  their  joy  in 
grumbling  at  foreign  manners  and  foreign  fare. 
He  had  always,  he  said  when  at  Brixen  in  Tyrol, 
distrusted  the  judgment  of  those  who  spoke  of  the 
conveniences  and  discomforts  of  foreign  coun- 
tries, not  one  of  them  knowing  how  to  appreciate 
these  except  by  his  own  accustomed  rule  and  the 
usage  of  his  village.  Now,  indeed,  he  was  more 
than  ever  amazed  at  their  stupidity,  having  heard 
tell  of  the  passes  of  the  Alps  as  full  of  difficulties, 
of  the  uncouth  manners  of  the  people,  of  inacces- 
sible roads,  wild  places  of  abode,  and  insupport- 
able air.  All  had  been  accepted  by  him  as  suffi- 
ciently agreeable;  and  if  he  had  to  choose  a  walk 
300 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

for  his  little  eight-years-old  girl  he  would  as  soon 
take  her  along  this  road,  he  declared,  as  any  path 
of  his  own  garden. 

He  could  not  wander  out  of  the  way,  for  every 
way  pleased  him,  and  therefore  was  the  right  one. 
His  companions  might  be  impatient  to  arrive  at  a 
destination,  but  he  was  always  content  with  the 
open  road.  "  I  truly  believe,"  writes  the  secre- 
tary, "  that  if  he  had  been  alone  with  his  own 
attendants,  he  would  rather  have  gone  to  Cracow 
or  towards  Greece  by  land  than  have  turned  off 
towards  Italy;  but  the  pleasure  which  he  took  in 
visiting  unknown  countries — so  delightful  to  him 
as  to  make  him  forget  the  infirmities  of  his  years 
and  health — he  could  not  impart  to  any  of  his 
company,  each  of  them  longing  for  a  place  of  rest. 
As  for  him,  he  was  wont  to  say  that  after  having 
passed  a  disturbed  night,  when  at  morning  he 
reflected  that  a  new  city  or  a  new  country  was  to 
be  seen,  he  rose  with  eager  gladness.  Never  did 
I  see  him  less  weary  or  less  disposed  to  com- 
plain of  his  sufferings;  his  spirit,  both  on  the 
road  and  at  his  resting-places,  was  so  much  on  the 
stretch  to  meet  things  and  to  take  advantage  of 
conversing  with  every  stranger  that  I  believe  it 
beguiled  him  of  his  malady."  Montaigne  ob- 
jected only  to  traversing  the  same  road  twice  over. 
It  was  all  to  him,  he  said,  like  reading  some  very 
delightful  story  or  admirable  book  and  he  feared 
301 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

to  arrive  at  the  closing  page.  Such  was  his  tem- 
per while  his  health  allowed  him  to  enjoy  life; 
when  illness  obliged  him  to  remain  still  and  to 
suffer,  he  accepted  the  inevitable  in  the  spirit  of  a 
philosopher :  "  It  would  be  too  great  cowardice 
and  weakness  on  my  part,"  he  writes  at  the  Bagni 
della  Villa,  "  if  knowing  that  every  day  I  am  in 
danger  of  death  in  this  manner,  and  that  it  must 
needs  draw  nearer  every  hour,  I  did  not  make 
every  effort,  before  its  arrival,  to  meet  my  end 
without  anxiety  whenever  it  may  come.  And  in 
this  respect  it  is  wise  to  receive  joyfully  the  good 
which  it  may  please  God  to  send  us.  There  is  no 
other  medicine,  no  other  rule  or  knowledge  by 
which  to  avoid  all  those  ills  which  assail  man  from 
every  side  and  at  every  hour  except  the  resolu- 
tion to  bear  them  humanly  {nmanauicntc) ,  or  else 
boldly  and  promptly  to  make  an  end  of  them." 

It  is  not  possible  here  to  follow  Montaigne 
through  all  the  pleasant  incidents  of  his  way- 
faring from  Beaumont  to  the  Baths  of  Plom- 
bieres,  through  Switzerland  and  Tyrol  and  the 
Empire  until  on  All  Saints'  Day  he  entered 
Verona.  At  Meaux  he  visits  the  so-called  tomb 
of  Ogier  the  Dane,  and  sees  the  garden  and  the 
curiosities  of  little  old  Juste  Terrelle,  long  a  so- 
journer in  Eastern  lands.  At  Epernay  he  con- 
verses with  the  learned  Jesuit  Maldonatus,  who 
gives  him  a  detailed  account  of  the  Baths  of  Spa. 
302 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

The  little  house  where  Joan  of  Arc  was  born, 
decorated  with  paintings  of  her  great  deeds,  in- 
terests him  at  Domremy.  He  turns  aside  from 
his  road  to  fipinal  in  order  to  visit  the  nuns  of 
Poussay,  who  exhibit  the  diversity  of  devotion, 
for  they  take  no  vow  of  virginity.  At  Plom- 
bieres,  where  he  stayed  for  ten  days,  he  gained 
the  friendship  of  the  Seigneur  d'Andelot,  a  dis- 
tinguished military  commander,  and  observed  the 
singularity  of  his  beard  and  eyebrows,  in  part 
blanched,  and  that  in  a  moment,  by  the  shock  of 
his  brother's  tragic  death.  On  his  departure  from 
the  baths  Montaigne  left  with  his  landlady,  after 
the  custom  of  the  country,  the  escutcheon  of  his 
arms  on  wood,  to  be  hung  on  the  outer  wall,  an 
innocent  piece  of  vanity  which  he  indulged  else- 
where, though  unauthorised  by  custom.  At  Bus- 
sang  he  descended  in  linen  garments  into  the 
silver  mines,  and,  riding  forward  by  and  by 
through  a  mountain  pass,  peered  up  at  the  nests 
of  the  goshawks  perched  on  inaccessible  rocks. 
In  Switzerland  he  learns  with  open  mind  that 
Protestantism  is  not  quite  an  "  immaterial"  re- 
ligion, nor  necessarily  a  religion  of  faction,  but 
may  be  part  of  a  dignified  order  coexisting  with 
freedom ;  yet  he  notices  also  the  dangers  arising 
from  variations  within  the  Protestant  faith.  He 
holds  discourse  with  the  learned  men  of  Basel, 
and  among  them  with  the  French  jurisconsult 
303 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Hotman — a  refugee  since  the  St,  Bartholomew, 
to  whom  he  afterwards  addressed  a  letter  telling 
of  his  happy  journey ings  in  Germany.  In  ob- 
serving the  manners  and  customs  of  each  locality 
in  the  minutest  details  he  is  ever  alert,  and  for 
the  comeliness  or  the  ill-favour  of  the  women  and 
the  fashion  of  their  attire  he  has  himself  an  old 
goshawk's  eye.  And  so  he  rides  onward,  starting 
each  morning  without  breakfast,  but  provided 
with  a  hunch  of  dry  bread,  drinking  little  wine, 
or  if  more  than  a  little  only  for  courtesy,  fas- 
tidious about  nothing  except  cleanliness  and  the 
mattress  and  hangings  of  his  bed,  ready  to  con- 
verse on  theology  or  the  equally  abstruse  science 
of  the  gullet,  and  having  but  three  regrets — that 
he  had  not  brought  with  him  a  cook  to  study 
foreign  methods,  a  German  valet  who  might  act 
as  an  interpreter,  and  a  Murray  or  Baedeker  of 
the  sixteenth  century  which  might  have  informed 
him  better  than  a  clergyman  or  a  fool  of  a  school- 
master concerning  the  rare  and  remarkable  sights 
of  town  and  country.  At  Augsburg  he  and  his 
friends  had  the  happiness  to  be  taken  for  barons 
and  knights;  and,  greatness  being  thrust  upon 
him  by  fortune.  Baron  Montaigne  was  pleased  to 
widen  the  basis  of  his  experience  by  accepting 
the  consideration  which  accompanied  his  new  dig- 
nity. He  attended  the  services  of  the  churches, 
Catholic  and  Lutheran,  with  impartial  interest, 
304 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

discoursed  with  a  Protestant  minister,  witnessed 
a  baptism,  was  present  at  the  wedding  of  a 
weahhy  young  lady  of  the  city — but  the  bride 
was  ill-favoured,  and  not  a  good-looking  woman 
among  the  guests  atoned  for  her  deficiencies — 
attended  an  exhibition  of  the  art  of  fencing,  and 
inspected  that  curious  postern-gate  of  the  city,  the 
secret  of  which  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England  had 
in  vain  sought  to  learn  through  an  ambassador 
extraordinary.  The  pride  of  Baron  Montaigne 
was  humbled  a  little  later,  when,  at  Hala,  the 
Archduke  Fernand  of  Austria,  to  whom  Mon- 
sieur de  Montaigne  desired  to  be  presented,  de- 
clined that  honour,  somewhat  ruffling  thereby  the 
philosopher's  temper. 

To  Italy  Montaigne  brought  his  abundant  good 
humour,  which  was  heightened  rather  than  di- 
minished by  the  devices  of  knavish  innkeepers  to 
entrap  him,  was  little  disturbed  by  their  indif- 
ferent wines,  and  even  survived  noisome  odours 
and  the  nocturnal  sallies  of  vermin ;  at  the  worst 
he  could  avoid  a  bed  and  stretch  himself  in  his 
clothes  upon  a  table.  He  enjoyed  the  aspect  of 
the  country,  the  vine-festoons,  the  great  gray 
oxen  in  the  fields,  the  cultivation  climbing  up  the 
steeps,  the  patches  of  pasture  scattered  among  pre- 
cipitous cliffs  and  splintered  crags,  the  chestnut- 
woods,  the  olive-trees;  yet  he  must  needs  lament 
a  little  w^hen  the  mulberries  were  stripped  of  their 

20  30s 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

leaves  and  forced  to  put  on  an  untimely  appear- 
ance of  winter.  The  dignity  of  the  peasantry 
pleased  him ;  even  in  asking  alms  they  seemed 
hardly  mendicants.  More  often  they  were  busy 
at  their  country  labours,  or  spinning,  and  this  on 
a  Sunday  as  well  as  on  week-days,  or  with  lutes 
in  their  hands  they  sang  the  pastoral  songs  of 
Ariosto.  The  beauty  of  the  women  he  thought 
had  been  overrated,  but  afterwards  in  the  upper 
ranks  of  society  he  saw  many  faces  of  dignity  and 
sweetness.  At  Venice,  at  Florence,  in  Rome  he 
observed  the  manners  of  those  who  made  mer- 
chandise of  their  beauty  and  their  wit,  and,  to 
satisfy  his  curiosity  the  better,  would  pay  for  a 
conversation  in  some  splendid  apartment,  and 
presently  be  off  to  listen  to  an  eloquent  preacher 
in  the  church.  To  be  at  once  exceedingly  devout 
and  extremely  disregardful  of  morals  was  com- 
mon enough  in  Italy  of  the  Renaissance — we  see 
the  curious  coalescence  in  Cellini's  Autobiography 
— and  Montaigne  was  amused  by  this  concordant 
discordance  as  one  of  the  varieties  of  human  na- 
ture. There  were  no  Lutheran  or  Calvinist 
ministers  here,  as  in  Switzerland  and  Germany, 
with  whom  he  could  discuss  the  theological  mys- 
tery— source  of  a  thousand  disputes — involved  in 
the  word  "  Hoc'\^  but  an  interesting  survival  of 

*  "  Hoc  est  corpus  mcuni." 
306 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

ancient  faith  could  be  studied  in  the  Jews.  At 
Verona  he  visited  their  synagogue,  and  held  long 
discourse  with  them  concerning  their  ceremonies. 
In  Rome  he  was  again  present  at  a  synagogue, 
noting  all  that  happened  during  the  service,  and 
in  a  private  house  he  witnessed  the  solemn  rite  of 
circumcision.  Nor  did  he  fail  to  attend  in  the 
church  of  the  Trinita  the  Lenten  sermon  of  a  re- 
canted Rabbi  for  whom  a  congregation  of  sixty 
of  the  unconverted  (for  the  Scripture  saith, 
"Compel  them  to  come  in")  was  duly  provided 
by  the  authorities.  Thus  Rome,  in  its  Christian 
zeal,  made  amends  for  Calvary. 

The  palaces  of  the  great  nobles  and  the  princes 
of  the  church,  with  their  elaborately  disposed  gar- 
dens, were  a  delight  to  Montaigne.  Pratolino, 
the  splendid  villa  of  the  Duke  of  Florence,  its 
long  garden-alleys,  and  grottoes,  and  stone- 
benches,  and  the  yet  more  sumptuous  garden  laid 
out  near  Tivoli  for  the  pleasure  of  Cardinal  Ippo- 
lito  d'Este,  especially  impressed  his  imagination; 
he  had  an  almost  childish  admiration  for  their 
fantastic  ingenuities  in  water-works,  which 
chirped  like  birds,  performed  upon  the  organ,  put 
statues  in  motion,  or  surprised  the  unwary  visitor 
with  sudden  jets  or  sprayings.  The  Cardinal 
Luigi  d'Este,  at  the  date  of  ]\Iontaigne's  arrival 
in  Italy,  chose  to  sojourn  in  the  stately  house  of 
a  Paduan  gentleman,  partly  to  bathe  his  gouty 
307 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

limbs  in  medicinal  waters,  but  chiefly  that  he 
might  enjoy  the  neighbourhood  of  the  ladies  of 
Venice,  being  a  cardinal  who  if  gouty  was  also 
gay.  These  visits  to  the  marvels  of  ingenious 
luxury  were  diversions  for  Montaigne.  With 
more  earnest  eyes  he  followed  the  traces  of  the 
history  of  his  own  nation  on  Italian  soil.  His 
father  had  fought  in  the  wars  of  Italy ;  his  friend 
Monluc  had  made  himself  glorious  by  his  defence 
of  Siena;  Strozzi,  a  marshal  of  France,  had 
also  performed  wonders  to  prevent  its  fall,  and, 
though  defeated,  had  struggled  gallantly  against 
superior  forces.  At  Epernay  Montaigne  had 
sought  out  the  undistinguished  grave  where 
Strozzi's  body  lay;  at  Florence  he  saw  hanging 
from  the  church  walls  the  banners  which  Strozzi 
had  lost ;  at  Siena  he  inspected  the  position  of  the 
city  with  a  special  view  to  understand  more  ex- 
actly the  military  operations;  on  his  way  from 
Pavia  to  Milan  he  turned  aside  from  the  road  to 
visit  the  field  where  King  Francis  had  been  de- 
feated and  taken  captive.  His  father's  journal 
had  probably  made  Montaigne  already  familiar 
with  many  forgotten  incidents  of  war. 

Wherever  he  went  he  seems  to  have  observed 
the  outward  practices  of  the  Christian  Faith,  as  he 
found  it  in  Italy.  He  saw  before  him  a  religion 
which,  however  abstruse  its  theological  dogma 
might  be,  was,  in  its  dealings  with  men  and 
308 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

women,  an  appeal  to  emotions,  a  religion  half- 
supernatural,  half-mundane,  and  always  essen- 
tially popular.  It  was  not  removed  from  ordinary 
life,  but  entered  into  that  life,  and  that  life  seemed 
to  enter  into,  and  become  a  part  of  religion.  It 
was  an  affair  which  highly  deserved  the  atten- 
tion of  a  student  of  human  nature.  There  were 
things  in  it,  or  encrusted  upon  it,  which  might 
look  specially  suitable  to  persons  not  overwise  or 
even  quite  childish ;  but  in  most  men  and  women 
there  is  something  of  the  fool  and  a  good  deal  of 
the  child.  When  Montaigne  was  present  at  high 
mass  in  the  Cathedral  of  Verona,  the  people  in 
the  choir  chatted,  with  hats  upon  their  heads,  and 
carelessly  turned  their  backs  upon  the  altar;  he 
was  surprised  and  a  little  shocked,  but  still  the 
great  act  was  performed,  and  at  the  elevation  of 
the  Host,  the  noisiest  gossips  became  worshippers. 
On  Christmas  Day,  at  St,  Peter's,  during  the 
mass  the  Pope  and  Cardinals  sat  with  covered 
heads  and  freely  conversed  with  one  another; 
before  the  cup  touched  any  sacred  lips  its  con- 
tents was  tested  lest  the  wine  should  have  been 
dosed  with  poison;  but  still  the  mass  was  cele- 
brated, and  the  Pope  had  taken  his  part.  His 
Holiness  had  a  natural  son,  whose  mother  was  a 
servant,  but  if  the  Vicar  of  God  was  a  man,  he 
was  none  the  less  God's  Vicar.  When  on  Holy 
Thursday  a  canon  of  St.  Peter's  read  aloud  to 
309 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

the  assembled  crowd  the  bull  which  excommuni- 
cated "  an  infinite  variety  of  people",  and  when 
he  came  to  the  article  wdiich  cut  off  those  who 
had  laid  hands  on  any  of  the  Church's  estates,  the 
Cardinals  Medici  and  Caraffa  burst  into  a  fit  of 
laughter;  yet,  all  the  same,  the  Pope,  who,  hard 
by,  held  the  lighted  torch  and  at  the  close  flung 
it  among  the  people,  to  scramble  for  its  frag- 
ments, had  done  the  stupendous  deed,  and  all 
these  evil  ones  were  cast  out.  The  "  Peniten- 
cers",  as  Montaigne  calls  them,  marched  by  torch- 
light through  the  streets  in  Lent,  to  the  number  of 
five  hundred,  scourging  themselves  with  cords  till 
their  backs  were  piteously  raw  and  bloody ;  many 
were  boys,  who,  as  one  declared,  did  their  pen- 
ance for  the  sins  of  others,  not  for  their  own ; 
they  seemed  to  enjoy  the  sport ;  perhaps  they  had 
greased  their  backs,  as  Montaigne  was  told,  and 
possibly  they  were  well  paid  for  their  pains.  But 
pious  torture  had  certainly  been  gaily  undergone; 
and  the  day  was  holy;  among  the  ladies  that 
looked  on,  not  an  amorous  glance  or  gesture  was 
to  be  discovered  as  the  thousands  of  torches  swept 
by  towards  St.  Peter's.  A  popular  religion  in 
truth !  The  priest,  wearing  red  gloves,  displayed 
from  his  pulpit  the  handkerchief  of  St.  Ve- 
ronica; instantly  the  vast  throng  fell  prostrate; 
and  cries  of  pity  and  the  sobs  of  weeping  men  and 
women  filled  the  church ;  then  the  crowd  changed 
310 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

and  was  perpetually  renewed.  "  Here,"  cries 
Montaigne,  "  is  the  true  Papal  Court ;  the  pomp 
of  Rome,  and  its  principal  grandeur,  lies  in  the 
show  of  devotion.  It  is  pleasant  in  these  days 
to  see  the  ardour  for  religion  of  a  people,  so  in- 
finite in  number." 

From  Verona  Montaigne  journeyed  by  Vicenza 
and  Padua  to  Venice;  from  Venice  by  Ferrara, 
Bologna,  Florence,  Siena,  to  Rome.  With  Venice 
he  was  somewhat  disappointed,  though  the 
French  ambassador,  then  troubled  by  his  master's 
unpaid  debts  to  the  Venetians,  strove  to  make 
himself  entertaining,  and  the  famous  Veronica 
Franca,  courtesan  and  authoress,  honoured  him 
with  a  copy  of  her  Letters.  Montaigne  did  not 
accept  as  final  his  first  impressions,  and  resolved 
to  return  to  Venice;  in  later  years  he  thought  of 
it  as  a  place  of  happy  retreat  for  one's  decline 
into  old  age.  At  Ferrara,  where  M.  d'Estissac 
presented  his  letters  of  commendation,  the  Duke 
conversed  with  the  elder  and  the  younger  French 
gentlemen,  and  remained  courteously  uncovered 
during  the  wdiole  reception.  The  Essays  inform 
us  of  what  the  Journal  is  silent — that  Montaigne 
also  visited  at  Ferrara  one  more  illustrious  than 
the  duke,  the  afflicted  Tasso,  then  immured  in  the 
Hospital  of  Ste.  Anna.  He  had  often  thought  of 
insanity  as  one  of  the  most  appalling  evidences  of 
the  infirmity  of  man,  of  how  some  trivial  misad- 
311 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

venture  to  the  brain  may  in  a  moment  convert 
the  wisest  philosopher  to  a  driveller  and  a  show. 
Tasso  was  not,  like  Swift,  an  object  of  repulsion; 
but  he  was  a  piteous  example,  as  it  seemed  to 
Montaigne,  of  infinite  wit,  by  virtue  of  its  force 
and  suppleness,  turning  against  itself;  reason 
had  produced  unreason;  his  mind's  eye  had  been 
blinded  by  excess  of  light. 

It  was  only  on  his  later  visit  to  Florence  that 
Montaigne  learnt  her  right  to  the  title  "  La 
bella".  On  his  way  Romewards  he  was  charged 
at  a  costly  rate  for  uncomfortable  quarters  and 
poor  entertainment.  A  dinner  with  the  Grand 
Duke,  a  broad-shouldered  dark  man,  with  a  genial 
countenance,  made  some  amends;  and  there  in 
the  place  of  honour  sat  the  voluptuous  beauty,  full- 
breasted,  low-bodiced,  Bianca  Capello,  now,  after 
her  shames  and  crimes,  the  Duchess  of  Florence. 

As  Montaigne  drew  towards  Rome  his  eager- 
ness increased.  He  believed  that  the  dew  of 
evening  and  of  early  morning  was  injurious  to  his 
health,  but  on  the  day  that  he  passed  through  the 
Porta  del  Popolo — November  30,  1580 — he  set 
forth  three  hours  before  sunrise  that  he  might  see 
by  daylight  the  approach  to  the  city.  He  thought 
that  he  had  known  it  well  already ;  but  Rome,  like 
the  ocean,  is  always  new.  For  him  it  was,  first, 
the  buried  Rome  of  the  past,  buried  far  deeper 
than  he  had  imagined;  but  soon  the  life  of  the 
312 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

present  grew  upon  him.  He  saw  in  Rome  a  city 
existing  for  the  court  and  the  nobihty,  a  centre  of 
ecclesiastical  idleness  and  ease,  to  which  every  one 
who  would  be  in  harmony  with  his  surroundings 
must  adapt  himself;  but  also  a  centre  for  all  the 
world,  the  great  metropolitan,  cosmopolitan  city, 
in  which  differences  of  nationality  almost  disap- 
peared. During  the  earlier  days  of  his  residence 
he  walked  unceasingly  in  the  hilly  district  where 
the  ancient  city  stood,  but  the  city  itself  could  not 
be  traced,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  even  the 
slopes  of  the  hills  must  have  changed  their  forms. 
He  declared  that  "  one  could  see  nothing  of  Rome 
but  the  sky  under  which  it  lay  and  the  outline  of 
its  site;  that  the  knowledge  he  had  respecting  it 
was  an  abstract  and  contemplative  knowledge,  in- 
cluding nothing  which  addressed  itself  to  the 
senses ;  that  those  who  said  that  at  least  the  ruins 
of  Rome  might  be  seen  said  too  much;  for  the 
ruins  of  a  machine  so  terrible  would  bring  more 
of  honour  and  of  reverence  to  the  memory  of  it; 
it  was  nothing  but  Rome's  sepulchre."  He  went 
on  to  assert  that  the  world,  hostile  to  the  long 
domination  of  Rome,  had  shattered  into  frag- 
ments the  wonderful  unity,  and  then,  in  horror  of 
the  deed,  had  buried  the  very  ruins.  As  for  the 
constructions  of  the  modern  bastard  Rome,  they 
reminded  him  of  the  nests  hung  by  crows  and 
martins  from  the  roofs  and  walls  of  churches  de- 
313 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

molished  by  the  Huguenots.  Nowhere  else  does 
the  Journal  depart  so  far  from  its  famihar  style, 
and  rise  to  a  sustained  rhetoric,  as  it  does  in  this 
passage. 

When  Montaigne  first  came  to  Rome  he  pro- 
cured the  services  of  a  French  guide;  but  soon, 
with  the  aid  of  books  and  maps  studied  each  even- 
ing, he  made  himself  a  complete  master  of  high- 
ways and  byways.  He  found  always  abundance 
of  pleasant  occupation.  One  day  it  is  dinner  with 
a  French  cardinal,  follov^^ed  by  vespers  in  the  Hall 
of  the  Consistory.  Another,  it  is  a  visit  through 
special  favour  to  the  Library  of  the  Vatican, 
which  the  French  ambassador  had  never  been 
permitted  to  see.  There  Montaigne  inspected 
with  peculiar  interest  a  manuscript  of  Seneca  and 
a  manuscript  of  the  minor  works  of  Plutarch ;  saw 
the  handwriting  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  and 
the  original  written  copy  of  the  book  upon  the 
Sacraments  which  Llenry  VIII.  of  England  had 
sent  some  sixty  years  previously  to  Pope  Leo  X. 
Now  he  observes  the  Muscovite  ambassador  in 
his  furred  hat,  scarlet  mantle,  and  coat  of  cloth  of 
gold ;  and  now  he  converses  with  an  old  Patriarch 
of  Antioch,  learned  in  many  tongues,  and  receives 
from  his  hands  a  drug  infallible  as  a  remedy  for 
his  affliction,  the  stone.  Or  there  are  races  along 
the  Corso — races  of  children,  Jews,  old  men 
naked — and  Montaigne  must  look  on.  Or  the 
314 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

heads  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  are  exhibited 
in  St.  John  Lateran,  and  the  philosopher  of  the 
tower  must  needs  be  one  of  the  devout.  Twice, 
though  tender-hearted,  he  witnessed  the  brutali- 
ties of  public  executions,  in  one  instance  with 
hacking  and  hewing  of  the  dead  body,  responded 
to,  at  every  stroke,  by  shudders  and  outcries  of 
the  crowd.  And  once  he  observed  the  pious 
process  of  an  exorcism ;  but  the  priest  had  to  ex- 
plain that  the  devil,  tenanting  the  possessed  man, 
was  of  quite  the  worst  species,  obstinate,  and  par- 
ticularly hard  to  deal  with ;  only  yesterday  a  simi- 
lar operation  had  been  quite  successful,  or  would 
have  been  so,  had  not  a  second  and  less  malicious 
demon  entered  into  the  patient  and  disguised  the 
operator's  triumph ;  he  was  acquainted,  says 
Montaigne,  with  the  names,  the  classification,  and 
the  particular  distinctions  of  all  the  diabolic  tribe. 
These  w-ere  incidents  of  ordinary  Roman  days. 
But  that  was  a  high  day  when  Montaigne  w-as  in- 
troduced by  the  French  ambassador  and  the  Papal 
chamberlain  to  Plis  Holiness,  Gregory  XIII., 
when  he  knelt  on  one  knee  or  on  two  knees  at 
the  appointed  stations,  and  when,  as  he  stooped 
to  kiss  the  foot,  His  Holiness  raised  a  little  the 
red  shoe  with  its  cross  of  white  to  meet  the  lips 
of  a  faithful  son  of  the  Church.  The  Pope  ex- 
horted Montaigne  to  continue  in  that  devotion 
which  he  had  always  manifested  towards  Rome, 
31S 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

and  assured  him  and  his  companions  that  he 
would  gladly  render  them  any  services  in  his 
power — the  services,  comments  the  narrator,  of 
Italian  phrases. 

The  ability  and  power  of  the  Jesuits  made  a 
deep  impression  on  Montaigne.  Never  did  any 
other  society,  he  thought,  attain  to  eminence  like 
theirs,  or  produce  effects  such  as  they  were  likely 
to  produce.  They  held  the  whole  of  Christendom 
in  possession;  they  formed  a  nursery  of  great 
men  in  every  order  of  greatness.  And  yet  he 
missed  in  Rome  two  things  which  he  had  found 
in  Venice  and  in  the  Protestant  cities  of  Germany 
and  Switzerland — he  missed  order  and  he  missed 
freedom.  The  safety  of  the  streets,  especially  at 
night,  was  ill-secured;  robberies  were  frequent; 
and  at  the  same  time  to  lift  up  one's  voice  against 
the  sloth  and  luxury  of  the  higher  ecclesiastics 
was  a  crime  visited  with  imprisonment.  On  en- 
tering Rome  Montaigne  had  to  permit  his  boxes 
to  be  searched  by  the  officials,  and  all  his  books 
had  been  seized.  One,  The  Hours  of  Our  Lady, 
was  viewed  suspiciously  because  it  was  printed  In 
Paris;  others,  because,  though  orthodox,  they 
made  mention  of  heretical  errors.  Fortunately  he 
had  not  brought  with  him  from  Germany  a  single 
treatise  by  a  Lutheran.  Among  the  volumes  in 
his  baggage  lay,  however,  a  copy  of  his  own  lately 
published  Essays,  and  this  was  carried  off  to  be 
316 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

examined  by  the  experts  in  heresy-hunting  and 
in  the  detection  of  Hterary  improprieties.  When, 
after  a  long  interval  of  time,  the  book  was  re- 
turned to  him,  "  castigated  according  to  the 
opinion  of  the  monastic  doctors",  the  censure  did 
not  prove  excessively  severe.  The  Master  of  the 
Sacred  Palace  knew  no  French,  and  he  was 
politely  satisfied  with  Montaigne's  explanation  of 
the  passages  which  had  met  the  reader's  disap- 
proval; he  left  it  to  Montaigne's  conscience  to 
make  amendments  in  whatever  was  wanting  in 
good  taste.  Montaigne  had  used  the  word  "  For- 
tune" ;  he  had  named  certain  heretical  poets,  such 
as  Beze ;  he  had  apologised  for  Julian  the  Apos- 
tate; he  had  asserted  that  one  who  prays  should 
for  the  time  be  free  from  vicious  inclination ;  he 
had  said  that  whatever  goes  beyond  the  mere  pun- 
ishment of  death  is  cruelty;  he  had  argued  that 
a  child  should  be  rendered  capable  by  education 
of  doing  all  manner  of  things.  Montaigne  pro- 
fessed that  he  had  only  put  forth  his  own  opinions, 
not  holding  them  for  errors,  and  he  alleged  that 
his  meaning  had  not  been  always  rightly  caught. 
The  Maestro  was  gracious,  and  pleaded  on  the 
Essayist's  side  against  an  Italian  who  was  present. 
When  Montaigne  was  about  to  quit  Rome  and 
went  to  take  his  leave  of  his  censors,  the  affair 
was  a  thing  of  the  past ;  they  begged  him  to  pay 
no  regard  to  the  objections;  they  complimented 
3^7 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

him  on  his  good  intentions,  his  abiht}^  his  affec- 
tion for  the  Church ;  and  they  left  it  to  himself  to 
retrench  in  future  editions  whatever  might  seem 
too  free-spoken,  and  in  particular  the  references 
to  Fortune.  The  speakers  were  persons  of  high 
authority,  not  cardinals,  but  "  cardinalable". 
None  the  less  Montaigne  took  his  own  way ;  in  the 
edition  of  1 588  he  made  it  clear  that  he  expressed 
in  the  Essays  only  his  private  opinions,  and  used 
certain  words  in  a  layman's  sense ;  but  he  altered 
not  one  of  the  passages  against  which  the  Roman 
censor  had  raised  objections;  Beze  was  still  com- 
mended as  a  poet ;  Julian  the  Apostate  was  hon- 
oured; and  the  incalculable  residuum  of  forces 
which  determines  so  many  events  was  still  de- 
scribed as  Fortune. 

In  one  of  the  later  essays,  that  on  Vanity,  it  is 
Fortune  that  he  thanks  for  an  airy  favour,  but 
one  highly  valued  by  him,  which  crowned  his 
ambition  at  Rome.  He  lived,  as  he  says,  with  the 
dead ;  Lucullus,  Metellus,  and  Scipio  were  to  him 
as  near  and  as  real  as  his  own  father,  w4io  was 
also  among  the  departed.  A  hundred  times  he 
had  quarrelled  on  behalf  of  Pompey  and  for  the 
cause  of  Brutus.  To  be  himself  a  citizen  of  Rome, 
to  possess  the  authentic  bull  of  Roman  burgess- 
rights,  with  all  its  pomp  of  seals  and  gilded  letters 
— this  was  an  object  with  splendid  flattery  in  it 
for  Montaigne's  imagination.  Was  it  a  piece  of 
318 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

mere  inanity  and  foppery  to  feel  a  pride  in  such 
a  distinction?  Well,  there  is  plenty  of  foppery 
and  inanity  in  each  of  us,  which  should  make  us 
deal  lightly  with  the  foible  of  Montaigne.  He 
sought  for  the  empty  title,  the  Journal  confesses, 
with  "  all  his  five  natural  senses" ;  the  Pope's 
majordomo  was  kind  and  helpful ;  Fortune 
smiled  upon  his  folly;  and  before  he  quitted  the 
city  on  his  pilgrimage  to  Loreto,  the  Senate  and 
the  people  of  Rome  had  decreed  that  the  most 
illustrious  Michel  de  Montaigne  should  be  ad- 
mitted to  all  those  privileges  which  signified  so 
little,  and  so  much. 

The  journey  to  Loreto  in  the  latter  days  of 
April,  1 581,  was  full  of  delight.  The  Journal  be- 
comes picturesque  in  its  descriptions  of  mountain 
and  valley,  wooded  hill,  and  torrents  transform- 
ing themselves  on  the  level  ground  to  pleasant 
and  gentle  streams.  Yet  Montaigne  was  not  too 
much  occupied  either  with  thoughts  of  nature  or 
of  grace  to  restrain  him  from  an  outbreak  of 
sudden  indignation  caused  by  the  misconduct  of 
his  vctturino;  the  man's  ears  did  not  escape  a 
smart  boxing  at  the  hands  of  the  Roman  citizen 
and  Knight  of  the  Order  of  St.  Michael,  who 
prudently  altered  his  course  lest  he  should  be 
brought  before  a  magistrate  on  the  charge  of 
assault.  Pilgrims,  single  or  in  troops,  clad  in 
the  appropriate  garb,  and  bearing  banners  and 
319 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

crosses,  as  he  drew  near  to  Loreto  crowded  the 
highway.  In  the  holy  place  he  gazed  upon  the 
wooden  image  of  Our  Lady,  and  in  a  favoured 
position  affixed  as  an  offering  his  silver  figures 
of  the  Montaigne  family.  Having,  in  the  chapel 
of  the  Cassctta,  partaken  of  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment, and  listened  to  many  tales  of  miracles, 
ancient  and  modern,  on  the  credibility  of  which 
he  pronounces  no  judgment,  he  set  forth  before 
the  end  of  April,  in  the  faint  hope  of  some  heal- 
ing for  the  body,  towards  the  Baths  of  Lucca. 

At  the  Bagni  della  Villa,  Montaigne,  who 
arrived  before  the  season  had  opened,  chose  a 
lodging  not  merely  for  its  interior  comfort  but 
because  its  outlook  on  the  valley  and  mountains 
was  beautiful;  at  night  the  soft  rippling  of  the 
Lima  was  in  his  ears.  His  host,  a  gallant  cap- 
tain, was  also  an  apothecary.  Here,  as  at  other 
baths  which  he  had  visited,  he  disregarded  the 
regular  mode  of  treatment  and  freely  took  his 
own  way,  believing  that  the  waters  could  do  little 
harm  or  good.  "  A  vain  thing,  indeed,"  he  sighs, 
"  is  medicine".  But  his  malady  was  not  always 
troublesome.  Soon  after  the  season  had  begun, 
observing  a  pleasant  custom  of  the  place,  he  in- 
vited both  gentlefolk  and  rustics  to  a  ball,  and 
himself  provided  the  pipers,  the  supper,  and  prizes 
for  the  most  graceful  dancers  among  the  villagers. 
There  is  genuine  glee  in  his  record  of  the  gaiety, 
320 


MONTAIGNE    ON    HIS    TRAVELS 

and  of  the  ceremonious  presentations  to  the  prize- 
winners. And  it  was  not  only  the  comely  maidens 
who  were  made  happy  by  his  kindness.  Poor 
Divizia,  thirty-seven  years  old,  ugly,  with  her 
wallet  of  a  goitre,  unable  to  read  or  write,  yet  de- 
lighting to  hear  Ariosto  recited,  and  shaping  her 
poor  thoughts  and  fancies  into  instinctive  verse, 
was  given  a  place  at  his  table,  and  repaid  his 
goodness  with  rhymes  in  his  honour,  which, 
though  no  more  than  rhymes,  had  a  certain 
grace  of  style.  It  was  the  busy  time,  when  mul- 
berry leaves  are  plucked,  and  yet  a  hundred  young 
men  and  maidens  attended  the  dance. 

Towards  midsummer  Montaigne  left  the  baths 
and  again  visited  Florence,  where  between 
chariot-races,  state  ceremonies  on  St.  John's  Day, 
inspecting  ladies,  purchasing  books  at  the  shop  of 
the  Giunti,  and  what  not,  he  found  much  to  enter- 
tain the  time.  Pisa,  where  his  feeling  for  the 
beauty  of  art  was  in  some  degree  awakened,  and 
where  a  battle  royal  between  ecclesiastics  in  the 
church  of  San  Francesco  made  gossipry  lively, 
pleased  him  as  well  or  better.  From  Lucca,  in 
mid-August,  he  returned  to  the  Baths,  and  there 
on  September  7  came  a  letter  from  Bordeaux 
which  brought  a  great  surprise  for  the  reader — 
more  than  a  month  previously,  as  it  informed  him, 
he  had  been  elected  mayor  of  the  city.  Five  days 
later  he  was  on  his  way  to  Lucca.  He  did  not 
21  321 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

hasten  back  to  France.  He  returned  to  Rome, 
But  there  upon  the  day  of  his  arrival — Sunday, 
October  i,  1581 — a  letter  was  handed  to  him, 
from  the  jurats  of  Bordeaux,  begging  him  earn- 
estly to  repair  with  all  convenient  speed  to  their 
city.  On  the  morning  of  the  1 5th  he  parted  from 
his  young  brother  Mattecoulon,  who  stayed  in 
Rome  to  perfect  himself  in  the  art  of  fencing,  and 
from  young  d'Estissac,  and  was  on  his  homeward 
way.  Partly  on  horseback,  partly  borne  in  a 
litter,  he  crossed  Mont  Cenis ;  and,  his  impatience 
rising  as  he  approached  home,  entered  the  chateau 
of  Montaigne,  after  an  absence  of  over  seventeen 
months,  on  the  last  day  of  November,  1581. 


322 


CHAPTER    XI 

MONTAIGNE  THE   MAYOR:     CLOSING  YEARS 

The  first  act  of  Montaigne  on  learning  that  he 
had  been  elected  mayor  of  Bordeaux  was  an  ex- 
pression of  his  wish  to  be  "  excused".  A  letter 
from  Henri  HI.,  written  at  Paris  five  days  before 
the  traveller's  arrival  at  the  chateau,  expressly  en- 
joined him,  under  pain  of  the  King's  serious  dis- 
pleasure, to  yield  to  the  wishes  of  his  fellow  citi- 
zens. It  was  a  time  when  the  pointer  of  the 
political  weather-glass  trembled  towards  concilia- 
tion. Montaigne's  predecessor  in  the  mayoralty, 
a  fiery  spirit,  the  Marshal  de  Biron,  had  made 
himself  unpleasing  to  the  people,  to  Henri  of 
Navarre,  to  his  Queen,  and  now  to  Henri  III.  in 
his  pacific  mood.  The  election  of  Montaigne 
gratified  all  parties,  except  Biron  and  Biron's  son. 
Montaigne's  father  had  been  a  mayor  devoted  to 
his  municipal  duties;  he  was  himself  a  man  of 
some  wealth  and  of  much  distinction ;  he  was 
known  to  be  no  violent  partisan,  but  on  the  con- 
trary eminently  reasonable,  moderate,  and  dis- 
creet. But,  if  he  was  not  old,  he  felt  that  he  had 
lost  some  of  his  youthful  energy ;  his  health  was 
323 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

broken;  he  was  a  lover  of  retirement,  one  who 
commended  "  a  Hfe  ghding  shadowy  and  silent". 
With  characteristic  frankness  and  fidelity  he  repre- 
sented himself  to  the  electors  as  he  felt  himself 
to  be — "  without  memory,  without  vigilance, 
without  experience,  and  without  vigour ;  but  also 
without  hatred,  without  ambition,  without  ava- 
rice, and  without  violence."  They  were  not  to 
expect  him  to  be  like  his  father;  he  could  not 
undertake  to  lose  himself  in  their  civic  affairs. 
He  might  lend  himself  to  the  public ;  but  give 
himself  he  would  not,  and  could  not.  It  was, 
indeed,  his  habit  to  promise  less  than  he  hoped  to 
perform.  Much  of  wisdom,  he  thought,  lies  in 
finding  the  exact  degree  of  friendship  which  each 
man  owes  himself;  it  is  true  that  we  cannot  live 
aright  for  ourselves  unless  we  live  for  others; 
and  when  duties  have  been  accepted,  we  must  be- 
stow our  best  care  and  attention  upon  them,  and 
"  if  need  be  our  sweat  and  our  blood".  Yet  if 
we  can  give  our  gifts  quietly,  without  eagerness 
or  perturbation,  and  can  still  possess  our  souls,  it 
will  be  best.  Even  business  itself  will  move  more 
surely  and  more  smoothly  if,  in  a  certain  sense, 
we  stand  above  it,  and  remain  sufficiently  detached 
from  it  to  exercise  on  every  matter  a  disinterested 
judgment  and  use  our  address  and  skill  in  busi- 
ness cheerfully,  but  without  passion. 

With  thoughts  such  as  these  Montaigne  ac- 
324 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

cepted  an  office  wliich  he  had  never  thought  of 
seeking  and  was  obedient  to  the  King's  monition. 
It  was  an  office  of  no  common  distinction.  The 
privileges  of  which  Bordeaux  had  been  deprived 
after  the  revolt  of  the  Gabelle  were  now  almost 
fully  restored  to  the  city.  Montaigne's  predeces- 
sors had  been  persons  of  eminence.  For  being 
influenced  by  this  consideration  he  smilingly  finds 
a  precedent  in  Alexander  the  Great,  who  declined 
the  citizenship  of  Corinth  until  he  was  informed 
that  Bacchus  and  Hercules  were  also  on  the  regis- 
ter. The  actual  duties  of  the  mayoralty  in  times 
of  quiet  were  not  arduous,  but  the  mayor  was  im- 
portant, robed  in  his  brocaded  red-and-white 
velvets  or  satins,  as  a  representative  of  the  ancient 
dignities  of  Bordeaux ;  he  took  precedence  of 
many  eminent  nobles,  and  in  times  of  disturb- 
ance his  responsibility  was  great.  The  office  was 
without  emolument,  and  was  held  for  a  period 
of  two  years,  with  the  possibility  of  reelection; 
Montaigne  could  feel  that  if  he  lent  himself  to  the 
interests  of  his  fellow  citizens,  it  was  no  affair 
of  hire  or  salary,  but  an  unmercenary  loan.  The 
titular  governor  of  Guyenne,  under  the  King  of 
France,  was  Henri  of  Navarre.  The  active 
authority  was  wielded  by  the  lieutenant-governor, 
the  Marshal  de  Matignon,  whom  Montaigne  had 
met  at  the  siege  of  La  Fere,  a  courageous  and 
loyal  Catholic,  but  liberal,  tolerant,  and  discreet. 
325 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

With  him  such  an  official  as  Montaigne  would 
not  find  it  difficult  to  cooperate. 

Montaigne's  period  of  mayoralty  was  extended, 
by  reelection  in  1583,  from  two  to  four  years. 
The  first  term  of  office  passed  in  comparative  tran- 
quillity. It  was  necessary  to  recall  the  Jesuits  to 
a  sense  of  their  duty  towards  the  unhappy  found- 
lings, whose  care  they  had  undertaken  in  con- 
sideration of  certain  advantages  to  themselves, 
and  had  transferred  at  a  low  rate  of  payment  to 
an  unscrupulous  agent,  with  the  result  that  the 
mortality  among  the  little  ones  had  become  a 
scandal.  The  self-indulgent  egoist  of  the  Mon- 
taigne legend — which  is  not  wholly  a  legend — 
came  forward  on  this  occasion  as  a  defender  of 
the  weak  against  the  strong.  In  the  first  days 
after  his  reelection  he  shows  himself  again  in  the 
same  character.  Many  of  the  wealthy  inhabitants 
of  Bordeaux  had  asserted  their  right  to  exemption 
from  certain  taxes  on  the  ground  of  being  con- 
nected directly  or  indirectly  with  the  public  ad- 
ministration, and  the  taxes  in  consequence  bore 
heavily  upon  the  poor.  The  mayor  and  the 
jurats  made  the  cause  of  the  feeble  their  own, 
and  addressed  a  spirited  remonstrance  to  the 
King,  taking  the  opportunity  also  to  urge  that 
each  parish  should  maintain  its  own  poor,  and 
that  religious  foundations  should  not  neglect  their 
charitable  duties.  In  his  own  old  school,  the  Col- 
326 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

lege  of  Guyenne,  the  mayor  maintained  his  in- 
terest; towards  the  rival  institution,  of  more 
recent  origin,  presided  over  by  the  Jesuits,  he 
showed,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  no  hostility ; 
but  the  college  to  which  his  father  had  sent  him 
when  a  boy,  now  presided  over  by  the  venerable 
filie  Vinet,  claimed  his  special  regard,  and  he 
gave  his  official  approval  to  the  regulations  which 
were  published  in  1583  under  the  title,  Schola 
aquitanica.  He  pleaded  with  the  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor, Henri  of  Navarre,  on  behalf  of  those  who 
were  suffering  from  restraints  placed  upon  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Garonne.  He  assisted  in 
making  arrangements  for  the  reconstruction  of 
the  Tour  de  Cordouan,  a  lighthouse  essential  for 
the  security  of  sailors  near  the  point  where  the 
Gironde  meets  the  sea.  He  journeyed  to  Paris 
probably  to  secure  the  complete  restoration  of  the 
privileges  of  his  fellow  citizens.  Montaigne  had 
not  promised  to  be  very  zealous  in  public  affairs, 
and  at  times  he  preferred  his  quiet  chateau  to  the 
streets  of  Bordeaux;  but  upon  the  whole  he  was 
better  than  his  word. 

By  the  convention  of  Fleix  it  had  been  deter- 
mined that,  with  a  view  to  securing  judicial  im- 
partiality between  the  contending  parties  in  the 
province,  a  new  Court  of  Justice  for  Guyenne,  the 
members  of  which  were  to  be  drawn  from  more 
disinterested  quarters  than  Bordeaux,  should  be 
327 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

established,  and  should  hold  its  first  session  in  the 
city  over  which  Montaigne  presided  as  mayor. 
Its  proceedings  were  opened  in  January  1582. 
Among  the  members  were  the  future  historian, 
Jacques- Auguste  de  Thou,  then  aged  twenty-nine, 
and  a  grandson  of  Montaigne's  friend,  the  Chan- 
cellor I'Hopital.  An  inaugural  address,  explain- 
ing the  origin  and  object  of  the  court,  and  pro- 
claiming, in  oratorical  periods,  the  doctrine  of 
conciliation,  was  delivered  in  the  great  hall  of  the 
convent  of  the  Jacobins,  and  in  the  presence  of 
Montaigne,  by  the  advocate-general,  Antoine 
Loisel.  He  also  pronounced  the  closing  address 
in  August  of  the  same  year.  The  first  of  these 
discourses,  published  in  1584  under  the  title  Of 
the  Eye  of  Kings  and  of  Justice,  was  not  long 
since  announced  by  an  English  writer  as  possibly 
a  hitherto  unrecognised  work  of  Montaigne;  the 
Montaignophiles  of  Bordeaux  smiled  at  the 
courageous  discoverer,  and  one  of  them  had  the 
infinite  satisfaction — at  which  Montaigne  himself 
might  have  smiled — of  exposing  the  incompetence 
of  the  "  hihliopliile  anglais".^  The  second  dis- 
course, designed  to  do  honour  to  the  city  of  Bor- 
deaux (where  the  speaker  had  passed  several 
months),  to  its  monuments,  and  to  its  illustrious 

*  See    Un   Livre   inconnu   attribnahle   a   Montaigne  .  .  . 
par  Philomneste  Senior,  Bordeaux :    1902. 

328 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

citizens — among  others  to  the  citizen  of  Rome 
who  now  was  mayor — is  dedicated  to  Montaigne. 
"  one  of  the  principal  ornaments  not  only  of 
Guyenne  but  also  of  the  whole  of  France".  When 
the  Essays  were  published  in  the  edition  of  1588, 
Montaigne  presented  a  copy  to  Loisel  bearing  an 
inscription  in  which,  with  an  added  touch  of 
humorous  self-depreciation,  he  begs  for  the  kind 
advice  of  his  friend.  Loisel's  colleague,  De  Thou, 
was  already  devoted  to  historical  research.  In 
his  Memoirs  he  speaks  of  his  intercourse  with 
Montaigne.  "He  gained,"  he  says,  "much  in- 
struction from  Michel  de  Montaigne — a  man  of 
frank  and  open  nature,  averse  to  all  constraint, 
one  who  had  entered  into  no  cabal ;  highly  in- 
structed, moreover,  in  our  affairs,  chiefly  in  those 
of  Guyenne,  his  native  country,  about  which  he 
was  thoroughly  informed." 

The  mayor  of  Bordeaux,  during  his  first  two 
years  of  office,  was  little  concerned  in  political 
affairs.  But  the  season  of  political  calm  was  pass- 
ing aw'ay.  Already  some  trouble  had  arisen  be- 
tween the  municipal  authorities  and  the  Baron  de 
Vaillac,  a  man  of  extreme  Catholic  sympathies, 
governor  of  the  Chateau  Trompette,  wdiich  from 
a  military  point  of  view  dominated  the  city.  The 
reelection  of  Montaigne  did  not  pass  without 
some  resistance,  though  a  resistance  that  was 
brushed  aside  on  an  appeal  to  the  King.  In 
329 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

August  of  that  year  Henri  III.,  after  his  pubhc 
insults  to  his  sister,  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  had 
ordered  her  to  quit  Paris.  Dishonoured  as  she 
was  with  accusations  of  a  shameless  life,  Mar- 
guerite was  an  outcast  from  her  husband.  In 
November  Henri  of  Navarre  took  sudden  action, 
seized  upon  Mont-de-Marsan,  and  held  it  in  force. 
It  was  a  part  of  prudence  that  he  should  stand 
well  with  the  mayor  of  Bordeaux.  A  series  of 
letters  were  addressed  by  Du  Plessis-Mornay,  on 
behalf  of  his  master,  to  Montaigne  with  the  object 
of  detaching  him  from  the  lieutenant-governor, 
Matignon,  or  at  least  of  securing  a  fair  hearing 
for  the  explanations  and  pleas  of  the  King 
of  Navarre.  Mornay  had  the  assurance  that 
the  mayor  of  Bordeaux,  in  his  "  tranquillity  of 
spirit,  was  neither  a  stirrer  up  of  strife  nor  him- 
self stirred  up  for  a  light  cause".  His  master, 
he  assured  Montaigne,  desired  nothing  but 
peace. 

And,  in  truth,  peace  was  convenient  at  this 
moment  for  the  King  of  Navarre,  but  he  desired 
to  obtain  favourable  military  concessions  as  an 
equivalent  for  his  generosity  in  receiving  back  his 
discredited  Queen.  Suddenly,  while  these  nego- 
tiations were  in  progress,  the  whole  position  of 
affairs  was  altered  by  what  Montaigne  might  have 
named  Fortune.  On  June  lo,  1584,  the  Duke  of 
Anjou  died,  and  by  his  death  left  Henri  of  Na- 
330 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

varre  the  heir  presumptive  to  the  throne  of 
France. 

Montaigne  held  Henri  of  Navarre  in  high 
esteem;  he  accepted  a  legitimate  title  because  it 
was  legitimate ;  he  saw  no  serious  difficulty  in  the 
King's  adherence  to  the  Reformed  Faith,  which 
he  regarded  aright  as  more  politic  than  theologi- 
cal ;  and  Henri  assuredly  believed  in  tolerance 
and  humanity.  When  the  League  put  forward 
the  Cardinal  de  Bourbon  as  a  rival  claimant  for 
the  succession  of  the  crown,  no  support  was  given 
to  the  faction  by  Montaigne.  In  the  spring  of 
1584  he  was  at  the  chateau,  resting  and  recover- 
ing from  an  attack  of  his  malady.  In  May  he 
was  engaged  as  an  intermediary  between  the  King 
of  Navarre  and  Matignon.  Towards  the  close 
of  the  same  year  Henri  was  at  no  great  distance 
from  the  chateau.  The  jurats  of  Bordeaux  en- 
treated the  mayor  to  return  to  the  city;  he  had 
no  choice  but  to  excuse  himself — he  had  the  whole 
court  of  the  King  of  Navarre  upon  his  hands; 
they  were  about  to  come  and  see  him ;  by  and  by 
he  would  be  more  free;  meanwhile,  in  the  matter 
which  immediately  concerned  them,  his  presence, 
he  assured  them,  would  bring  them  "  nothing  but 
his  own  embarrassment  and  uncertainty  in  form- 
ing an  opinion  or  a  decision". 

A  few  days  later,  on  December  19,  1584,  Henri 
of  Navarre,  followed  by  a  train  of  some  forty 
331 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

persons  of  the  highest  distinction,  arrived  at  the 
chateau  of  Montaigne.  It  had  never  before  en- 
tertained so  brilHant  an  assemblage,  and  Mon- 
taigne enumerates  with  pride  the  names  of  the 
principal  guests  in  his  copy  of  Beuther's  EpJiem- 
erides.  They  were  served  by  his  own  atten- 
dants; here  was  no  fear  of  foul  play,  and  the 
meats  were  eaten  unassayed;  the  King  slept  in 
Montaigne's  own  bed.  During  two  days  they 
enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  the  chateau,  and  as  they 
set  forth  a  stag  was  started  for  them  in  their 
host's  forest,  which  gave  them  sport  for  two  days 
more.  This  on  Montaigne's  part  was  honourable 
service  to  the  future  King  of  France.  Had  he 
desired  to  ingratiate  himself  in  dishonourable 
ways,  the  opportunity  for  doing  so  was  open  to 
him.  Montaigne  had  long  been  in  cordial  rela- 
tions with  Diane  d'Andouins,  ''  la  belle  Cori- 
sande",  who  now  held  Henri  under  her  spell.  He 
chose  a  more  courageous  and  an  honester  course 
of  action  than  that  of  flattering  her  on  her  tri- 
umph ;  he  counselled  her  "  not  to  entangle  with 
his  passions  the  interest  and  fortune  of  the  prince, 
and  since  her  influence  over  him  was  so  great  to 
have  more  consideration  for  his  usefulness  *  than 
his  private  humours."  She  may  have  regarded 
such  advice,  without  active  resentment,  as  part  of 

*  Or  perhaps  "  his  profit" — "  titilite". 
332 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

an  old  friend's  kindly  prudence,  but  she  had  a 
more  powerful  counsellor  in  the  passion  of  the 
King. 

Though  looking  upon  the  King  of  Navarre  as 
the  hope  of  France,  Montaigne  never  forgot  that 
his  loyalty  was  due  to  Henri  HI.  The  old  mari- 
ner in  a  great  tempest,  he  tells  us  in  one  of  his 
essays,  spoke  thus  to  Neptune :  "  O  God,  thou 
wilt  save  me,  if  it  be  thy  will,  and  if  thou 
choosest,  thou  wilt  destroy  me ;  but,  however  it 
be,  I  will  always  hold  my  rudder  straight."  And, 
indeed,  a  supple,  ambiguous  man  might  have  been 
less  secure  than  Montaigne.  He  kept  himself  in 
close  communication  with  Matignon,  the  acting 
representative  of  the  King  of  France,  and  fur- 
nished him,  in  letters  which  remain  to  us,  with 
whatever  information  might  prove  useful.  The 
danger  of  the  time,  and  especially  the  danger  for 
the  peace  of  Bordeaux,  arose  more  from  the  de- 
signs of  the  League  than  from  those  of  the  King 
of  Navarre.  In  April,  1585,  the  Leaguers  had 
the  hope  that  by  a  sudden  rising  they  might  obtain 
command  of  the  city.  Vaillac,  the  governor  of  the 
Chateau  Trompette,  was  zealous  in  their  cause. 
With  the  pretext  that  he  had  orders  to  communi- 
cate from  the  King,  Matignon  summoned  an 
assembly  of  the  mayor,  the  jurats,  and  the  prin- 
cipal members  of  the  administration.  The  pas- 
sages to  the  chamber  in  Matignon's  hotel  were 
32Z 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

occupied  by  armed  guards.  In  some  opening 
words  he  spoke  of  the  evil  intentions  of  the 
League;  he  went  on  to  explain  the  immediate 
danger  to  the  city,  for  which  the  remedy  must 
needs  be  short  and  sharp.  Then  turning  his  eyes 
on  Vaillac,  he  declared  that  his  fidelity  was  sus- 
pected, and  that  he  must  forthwith  place  the 
Chateau  Trompette  in  loyal  hands.  Vaillac 
quailed,  but  protested  and  pleaded  his  honour. 
Matignon  silenced  the  speaker,  demanded  obedi- 
ence under  threat  of  immediate  execution  in 
presence  of  his  garrison,  disarmed  him,  delivered 
him  to  the  guards,  and  directed  the  mayor  to 
make  known  to  the  citizens  of  Bordeaux  the  pur- 
poses of  the  King  and  his  lieutenant-governor. 
For  some  hours  Vaillac  still  resisted,  then  made  a 
virtue  of  necessity,  was  handed  back  his  sword, 
and  standing  at  the  gate  of  the  Chateau  Trom- 
pette directed  his  officers  to  come  forth  and  take 
their  orders  from  the  marshal.  It  only  remained 
for  the  mayor  and  jurats  some  days  later  to  em- 
body in  writing  a  fervent  declaration  of  their 
loyalty  to  the  King. 

Thus  the  danger  from  the  Leaguers  within  Bor- 
deaux was  averted.  The  movements  of  the 
Huguenots  throughout  the  province  caused 
anxiety  from  the  opposite  side.  A  month  after 
the  seizure  of  the  Chateau  Trompette,  Matignon 
was  absent  at  Agen,  and  had  left  the  city  under 

334 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

the  care  of  men  on  whom  he  could  rely  and, 
among  them,  the  mayor.  The  responsibihty 
weighed  upon  Montaigne;  he  saw  to  gates  and 
guards,  feared  some  unforeseen  movement  which 
might  suddenly  "  take  him  by  the  throat",  and 
prayed  for  the  return  of  the  marshal.  It  was  the 
time  of  the  annual  review  of  the  armed  citizens  of 
Bordeaux.  Some  of  the  authorities  hesitated  and 
spoke  of  the  serious  risks,  under  the  present  cir- 
cumstances, of  such  a  gathering.  Montaigne, 
who  always  walked  with  head  erect,  urged  that 
prudence  lay  in  boldness;  the  officials,  whose 
danger  was  greatest,  should,  he  declared,  assume 
a  confident  bearing,  and  should  beg  the  captains 
to  order  that  the  salvoes  should  be  "  belles  ct 
gaillardes"  in  honour  of  those  who  were  present, 
and  that  the  powder  should  not  be  spared.  Mon- 
taigne's counsel  was  justified  by  the  event,  yet 
still  there  was  much  cause  for  anxiety.  On  May 
27  he  writes  to  Matignon :  "  The  neighbour- 
hood of  M.  de  Vaillac  fills  us  with  alarms,  and 
there  is  no  day  that  does  not  bring  fifty  and  of 
an  urgent  nature.  We  most  humbly  beg  you  to 
come  to  us  as  soon  as  ever  your  affairs  will 
permit  you.  I  have  passed  every  night  either  in 
the  city  under  arms  or  without  the  city  on  the 
port;  and  before  receiving  your  information,  I 
had  already  watched  throughout  the  night,  upon 
intelligence  of  a  boat  laden  with  armed  men, 
335 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

which  was  to  pass."  A  postscript  adds  the  words : 
"  Every  day  I  have  been  at  the  Chateau  Trom- 
pette.  You  will  find  the  platform  made.  I  see 
the  Archbishop  daily." 

A  more  irresistible  terror  than  that  caused  by 
the  machinations  of  the  League  invaded  Bordeaux 
as  Montaigne's  second  period  of  mayoralty  drew 
towards  a  close.  The  city  was  stricken  by  the 
plague.  Almost  every  citizen  whose  circum- 
stances permitted  it  took  to  flight.  The  Parlia- 
ment ceased  to  sit.  On  the  last  day  of  July  Mon- 
taigne's term  of  office  expired.  Matignon  had 
returned  to  the  stricken  city  a  month  previously. 
On  the  eve  of  the  election  of  Matignon  as  his 
successor,  Montaigne  was  at  Libourne.  He  wrote 
to  the  jurats,  assuring  them  that  he  would  spare 
neither  his  life  nor  any  other  thing  in  their  ser- 
vice, and  leaving  it  to  them  to  decide  whether  the 
gain  of  his  presence  at  the  approaching  election 
was  worth  the  risk  which  he  should  run  by  enter- 
ing the  infected  city.  He  proposed,  as  a  com- 
promise, that  he  should  next  day  approach  as  near 
as  Feuillas,  a  chateau  opposite  Bordeaux  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Garonne,  and  should  there  de- 
liver up  his  charge.  On  July  31  he  was  at 
Feuillas,  and  again  addressed  a  letter  to  the  jurats. 
His  last  act  as  mayor  of  Bordeaux  was  to  give 
the  weight  of  his  authority  against  the  inhuman 
practice  of  taking  women  and  children  prisoners. 
336 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

Our  information  should  be  much  fuller  than  it 
is  at  present  before  we  should  be  justified  in 
passing  a  sentence  of  condemnation  on  Mon- 
taigne for  remaining  absent  from  the  city  during 
the  visitation  of  the  plague.  Matignon  may  have 
made  such  arrangements  as  would  have  rendered 
Montaigne's  residence  in  Bordeaux  an  act  of  use- 
less chivalry.  Neither  Matignon  nor  any  of  his 
contemporaries  censured  him.  He  was  not,  as 
was  Rotrou,  poet  and  mayor  of  Dreux,  who  per- 
ished through  his  zeal,  a  man  of  the  heroic  breed ; 
but  he  was  a  loyal  man,  who  would  neglect 
nothing  that  he  judged  to  be  a  real  duty.  He 
had  recently  borne  much  stress  and  strain;  he 
had  shown  his  energy,  his  courage,  and  his  public 
spirit.  Some  months  previously  his  state  of 
health  had  made  it  needful  for  him  to  retire  to 
the  repose  of  his  chateau.  We  cannot  tell  whether 
an  access  of  his  malady  did  not  compel  him  to 
retire  again.  "  Nothing  noble,"  he  wrote,  "  can 
be  done  without  hazard.  .  .  .  Prudence,  so  deli- 
cate and  circumspect,  is  a  mortal  enemy  of  high 
exploits."  We  do  not  know  whether  high  exploits 
were  possible  for  Montaigne;  we  do  not  know 
whether  he  yielded  to  necessity  or  to  an  unheroic 
prudence;  we  can  neither  applaud  nor  justly  con- 
demn. 

Looking  back  upon  his  services  as  mayor  of 
Bordeaux,  he  did  not  himself  find  much  to  praise 
22  337 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

or  anything  to  blame.  He  had  played  his  part; 
he  had  donned  his  shirt,  but  the  shirt  was  not  the 
skin — "  the  mayor  and  Montaigne  were  always 
two,  with  a  very  evident  separation".  His  work 
had  been  that  of  conserving  and  holding  on — 
"  conserver  et  durer",  not  the  work  of  an  initiator 
or  a  reformer :  "  To  forbear  doing  is  often  as  gen- 
erous as  to  do,  but  it  is  less  in  the  light,  and  what 
little  worth  I  have  is  of  this  kind."  On  the  whole 
Bordeaux  during  his  administration  had  enjoyed 
"  a  sweet  and  silent  tranquillity" ;  if  this  was  due 
to  Providence  rather  than  to  any  exertions  of  his, 
he  was  well  content  that  he  should  owe  his  suc- 
cesses to  the  grace  of  God.  He  was  not  satisfied 
with  himself,  but  he  had  done  almost  as  well  as  he 
had  hoped  to  do,  and  had  exceeded  by  a  great 
deal  what  he  had  promised  to  others.  He  was 
confident  that  he  had  left  no  offence  or  hatred 
behind  him — "  to  leave  behind  regret  and  desire 
for  me  I  at  least  know  for  certain  was  not  a  thing 
which  I  greatly  affected."  His  hours  of  office 
passed  without  mark  or  trace.  Very  well ! — "  il 
est  bon!"  He  might  be  accused  of  doing  too 
little,  but  was  it  not  a  time  when  almost  every 
one  might  be  convicted  of  doing  too  much?  So 
he  ponders  the  past,  and  his  final  verdict  upon 
himself  is  given  in  all  sincerity — "  I  did  not,  to 
my  knowledge,  omit  any  exertion  which  my  duty 
really  demanded  of  me." 
338 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

The  plague  was  not  confined  to  the  city  of  Bor- 
deaux. It  ravaged  the  country,  and  reached  the 
neighbourhood  of  Montaigne's  chateau,  where 
contagion  had  never  before,  in  the  memory  of 
man,  obtained  a  hold.  The  grapes  hung  un- 
touched upon  the  vines,  the  fields  were  neglected ; 
no  outcries  of  lamentation  or  despair  were  heard ; 
the  peasantry  accepted  the  inevitable  with  a 
strange  patience,  came,  as  it  were,  to  terms  with 
death,  and  cared  only  that  their  bodies  might  not 
lie  uncovered  by  the  earth.  Montaigne  had  not 
much  apprehension  for  himself;  he  believed  that 
he  was  little  liable  to  infection ;  and  death  by  the 
plague  did  not  seem  to  him  the  worst  of  deaths. 
But  his  wife,  his  daughter,  and  his  aged  mother 
must,  if  possible,  be  placed  in  safety,  and  he  must 
act  as  guide  and  conductor  to  his  caravan  of  dis- 
tracted women.  His  undefended  house  was  pil- 
laged by  the  irregular  soldiery  wandering  over  the 
country.  Persons  passing  from  an  infected  dis- 
trict to  one  still  free  from  attack  were  regarded 
with  horror;  if  one's  finger  ached,  it  must  needs 
be  the  plague,  and  departure  was  demanded. 
Montaigne,  who  had  been  so  hospitable,  could 
with  difficulty  find  any  shelter  for  his  family,  and 
during  six  miserable  months  they  shifted  from 
place  to  place.  Two  excellent  preservatives,  how- 
ever, he  always  carried  with  him — resolution  and 
endurance, 

339 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

The  evil  days  passed,  and  probably  before  the 
end  of  the  year  the  homeless  wanderers  had  re- 
turned to  the  chateau.  Montaigne  was  freed  from 
anxiety,  released  from  public  duties  in  Bordeaux, 
and  able  once  more  to  enjoy  the  delights  of  soli- 
tude or  the  company  of  his  beloved  books ;  able  to 
read,  to  invite  his  soul,  and  to  speak  to  the  sheets 
of  paper  that  lay  before  him.  During  the  interval 
between  the  close  of  1585  and  the  opening  of 
1588  he  occupied  himself  with  preparing  the  Es- 
says in  the  form  in  which  they  appeared  in  the 
latter  year.  The  Essays  in  the  original  edition 
of  1 580  had  met  with  a  favourable  reception ;  two 
years  later  they  were  reprinted  with  a  few  slight 
touches  showing  the  author's  interest  in  his  work. 
The  edition  of  1588  is  called  on  the  title-page  the 
fifth ;  but  only  those  now  mentioned,  and  a  Paris 
reprint  of  1587,  are  known.  That  which  has  dis- 
appeared is  conjectured  to  have  been  an  unauthor- 
ised reprint  of  Rouen. 

Montaigne  had  been  asked  to  write  a  history 
of  his  own  times,  which,  it  was  supposed,  would 
have  had  the  advantage  of  being  the  work  of  an 
impartial  spectator  rather  than  of  a  heated  par- 
tisan. But  he  could  not  lay  such  a  burden  upon 
his  own  shoulders.  The  free,  discontinuous  way 
of  writing  suited  his  temper  best.  Yet,  in  the  new 
confidence  acquired  from  proofs  of  his  popularity 
as  an  author,  he  was  disposed  to  let  his  chapters 
340 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

run  to  greater  length,  if  they  were  not  formal  in 
their  continuity;  if  within  the  ampler  bounds  he 
might  go  forward  or  turn  aside  as  the  humour 
took  him.  He  thought  that  the  frequent  breaks 
in  the  earlier  and  shorter  essays  dissipated  the 
reader's  attention  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  cre- 
ated ;  a  reader  who  would  not  give  an  hour  gave 
him  nothing,  and  need  not  be  considered.  He 
spoke  more  freely  and  familiarly  of  himself,  feel- 
ing now  more  than  ever  before  that  any  contribu- 
tion he  could  make  towards  true  views  of  human 
life  must  be  taken  in  relation  to  the  speaker;  the 
angle  of  incidence  where  the  ray  impinges  must 
be  calculated;  the  book  was  no  more  than  the 
opinions  of  Michel  de  Montaigne,  but  while  he 
might  have  his  individual  peculiarities,  v;hich 
ought  to  be  known,  he  had  within  him  also  some- 
thing of  universal  humanity.  He  drew  such 
wisdom  as  he  had  to  offer  primarily  from  him- 
self. In  writing  he  did  not  need  a  great  library; 
he  looked  with  some  scorn  upon  scholars  of  men- 
dicant understanding,  who  gather  the  alms  of 
knowledge  from  their  shelves.  As  for  himself, 
Plutarch  was  enough,  Plutarch  alone  was  indis- 
pensable. If  he  borrowed,  it  was  to  make  others 
say  for  him  with  happier  utterance  what  he  had 
himself  thought.  And  it  was  pleasant  to  consider 
that  if  a  reader  quarrelled  with  the  Essayist,  he 
might  really  be  railing,  not  against  Montaigne, 
341 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

but  Seneca;  or  in  giving  a  fillip  on  Montaigne's 
nose  might  in  fact  malve  Plutarch  his  jest  or  his 
victim.  Wherever  in  his  reading  he  noted  a  quo- 
tation which  confirmed  or  added  force  to  what  he 
had  written,  he  inserted  it  in  an  appropriate  place. 
Many  of  the  additions  to  the  first  two  Books  are 
of  this  kind;  but  the  earlier  essays  were  elastic 
enough  to  be  extended  in  other  ways;  a  place 
here  and  a  place  there  was  found  for  anec- 
dotes, personal  reminiscences,  new  and  striking 
thoughts;  something  of  the  original  scheme  and 
sequence  was  lost ;  but  scheme  and  sequence  were 
not  the  special  virtue  of  the  Essays.  The  banyan- 
tree  threw  down  its  branches ;  and,  as  they  rooted, 
they  changed  to  trunks  supporting  more  spacious 
crowns.  To  trace  out  the  logic  of  an  essay,  the 
earlier  form  is  valuable;  but  the  added  wisdom 
and  play  of  mind  more  than  make  amends,  in 
such  work  as  this,  for  any  loss  of  formal  evolu- 
tion. "  I  add,  but  I  correct  not",  he  says ;  and 
he  goes  on  to  explain  that  having  parted  with  his 
book,  he  no  longer  felt  that  it  was  his  to  alter, 
nor  indeed  was  he  sure  that  years  had  brought 
him  any  new  wisdom  which  might  justify  emen- 
dations of  the  work  of  his  former  self.  And  yet, 
in  fact,  there  are  passages  where  he  alters  as  well 
as  adds,  in  some  few  instances  qualifying  or 
attenuating  what  he  had  previously  written,  but 
more  often  enhancing  the  force  of  his  idea  or  the 
342 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

vivacity  of  its  expression.  To  the  criticism  of 
friends  or  acquaintances  Montaigne  was  not  dis- 
posed to  yield;  if  a  definite  error  were  pointed 
out  he  was  wilHng  to  correct  it;  but  if  objections 
were  made  to  his  crowded  metaphors,  his  seem- 
ing paradoxes,  his  imperfect  knowledge,  his  Gas- 
con turns  of  expression,  his  words  uttered  in  jest 
w^hich  might  be  taken  for  words  uttered  in 
earnest,  he  had  an  answer  ready.  These  things 
were  part  of  himself;  he  had  represented  himself 
to  the  life ;  every  one  would  recognise  him  in  his 
book,  and  the  book  in  him.  If  the  whole  volume 
was  a  piece  of  ill-joined  marquetry,  it  was  the 
marquetry  of  an  ill-joined  mind.  If  he  fagoted 
his  notions  as  they  fell,  was  not  he  himself  no 
better  than  a  bundle  of  humorous  diversities? 

Solitude  among  unlettered  folk  did  not  seem 
to  Montaigne  to  be  wholly  a  disadvantage.  Un- 
der other  conditions  his  book  might  have  been 
better,  but  it  might  have  been  less  his  own.  He 
met  hardly  a  man  who  understood  the  Latin  of 
his  Paternoster;  he  had  no  assistant  to  aid  him 
or  to  lighten  his  labours.  Yet  one  man  of  learn- 
ing he  did  meet,  and  entertained  in  July,  1586, 
under  his  hospitable  roof.  Pope,  in  one  of  his 
"  moral  essays",  connects  the  name  of  Montaigne 
with  that  of  "  more  sage  Charron" — more  sage, 
says  Warburton,  because  Charron  moderated  the 
extreme  Pyrrhonism  of  Montaigne.  In  truth  he 
343 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

systematised  and  methodised  the  suspended  judg- 
ment of  Montaigne,  or  incHned  the  balance  of 
"  Que  sgay-je?"  towards  nescience  rather  than 
knowledge.  He  was  eight  years  younger  than 
Montaigne,  joyous  of  temper,  jovial  of  counte- 
nance, an  ecclesiastic  of  distinction,  a  believer 
who  was  also  a  sceptic,  qualified  in  all  ways,  ex- 
cept for  a  certain  lack  of  intellectual  flexibility, 
to  be  Montaigne's  devoted  disciple.  Such  a  dis- 
ciple was  welcome  to  the  solitary  philosopher  of 
the  tower;  "  praise,"  we  read  in  the  Essays,  "  is 
always  pleasant";  and  discipleship  is  the  most 
efficient  kind  of  praise.  After  all,  Montaigne  had 
belied  himself — he  could  produce  not  only  "  es- 
says", but  "  effects". 

Early  in  1588  Montaigne  left  the  chateau  for 
Paris,  probably  with  the  intention  of  superintend- 
ing the  new  edition  of  the  Essays  as  it  went 
through  the  press.  Near  the  forest  of  Villebois 
he  was  attacked  by  a  band  of  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  gentlemen  of  the  League,  wearing  vizors, 
and  followed  by  an  overwhelming  wave  of  mus- 
keteers on  horseback.  He  was  dismounted, 
robbed  of  his  horse,  his  money,  his  papers,  all  his 
possessions  of  travel.  His  ransom  was  discussed ; 
his  life  seemed  to  be  in  question.  He  bore  him- 
self stoutly ;  and  once  again,  as  in  the  former  plot 
to  seize  upon  the  chateau,  he  was  saved  by  his 
frank,  courageous  countenance  and  his  gallant 
344 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

speech.  According  to  the  dramatic  version  of 
the  incident  given  in  the  essay  on  Pliysiognomy, 
the  leader  pulled  off  his  vizor,  declared  his  name, 
and  restored  to  the  captive  all  that  he  had  been 
deprived  of.  A  letter  to  Matignon  written  from 
Orleans  represents  the  Leaguers  as  less  generous ; 
they  dismissed  him,  but  retained  his  money,  with 
many  of  his  papers  and  part  of  his  other  proper- 
ties. It  may  be  that  these  were  afterwards  sent 
to  him  and  that  the  dramatist  of  the  Essays  does 
not  depart  very  widely  from  the  prosaic  facts. 

About  midsummer,  1588,  the  Essays  in  their 
new  form  appeared.  To  this  period  of  Mon- 
taigne's residence  in  Paris  we  may  with  proba- 
bility refer  a  dangerous  illness  spoken  of  by  his 
friend  Pierre  de  Brach,  the  poet  and  advocate,  of 
Bordeaux,  in  a  letter  addressed  after  the  Essay- 
ist's death  to  the  eminent  humanist,  Justus  Lip- 
sius.  "  Being  together,  some  years  ago,  in  Paris," 
he  writes,  "  the  physicians  despairing  of  his  life, 
and  he  himself  hoping  only  for  his  end,  I  saw  him 
when  death  looked  him  closest  in  the  face,  repel 
far  from  him  its  terror  by  contemning  it."  De 
Brach  goes  on  to  describe  Montaigne's  equa- 
nimity, and  to  refer  to  his  words  of  philosophic 
wisdom;  "he  had  cheated  death  by  his  self-pos- 
session, and  death  cheated  him  by  his  convales- 
cence." He  was  sufificiently  recovered  in  June  and 
July  to  follow  the  French  King  in  some  of  the 
345 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

enforced  wanderings  of  his  Court  when  the  capi- 
tal was  held  by  the  Duke  of  Guise  and  the  League. 
A  disagreeable  surprise  awaited  Montaigne  on 
his  return  from  Rouen  to  Paris.  He  was  seized 
at  his  lodgings  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain 
and  he,  who  had  never  known  the  interior  of  a 
prison,  found  himself,  as  we  learn  from  the 
Ephemcridcs,  a  prisoner  in  the  Bastille.  He  was 
told  that  his  seizure  was  by  way  of  reprisal  for 
the  like  treatment  by  the  King  of  a  gentleman  of 
Normandy.  It  was  a  brief  incarceration,  hardly 
long  enough  to  widen  the  basis  of  Montaigne's 
experience.  His  arrest  was  at  three  or  four 
o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  July  lo;  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day  he  was 
released.  The  favour  was  granted  through  the 
special  intervention  of  the  Queen  Mother,  Cathe- 
rine de'  Medici. 

Paris,  which  he  loved  so  warmly,  was  not 
wholly  unkind.  It  was  here  that  he  had  received 
an  eager  salutation  from  a  young,  accomplished, 
and  enthusiastic  stranger,  attracted  to  him  solely 
by  her  admiration  of  the  Essays,  Marie  le  Jars  de 
Gournay.  Montaigne  was  no  surly  philosopher  of 
the  cynic  sect.  He  responded  with  all  the  warmth 
of  fifty-five  years,  which  had  not  grown  frosty, 
to  the  ardour  of  her  summer-time  of  twenty- 
three.  Soon  he  became  her  spiritual  father  and 
she  became  his  "  Ullc  d'alliance",  a  title  by  which, 
346 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

as  she  herself  declares,  she  felt  herself  "  glorified 
and  beatified".  She  lived  in  Picardy  with  her 
mother,  the  widow  of  a  distinguished  public  offi- 
cial who  had  died  young;  she  read  with  passion- 
ate curiosity,  mastered  Latin,  faltered  at  Greek, 
and  before  the  year  1588  was  ended,  had  written 
a  romance  of  love,  in  the  Renaissance  manner, 
with  a  Persian  princess  for  her  heroine.  In 
honour  of  the  visits  of  Montaigne  to  Gournay- 
sur-Aronde — visits  which  extended  over  some 
three  months — and  especially  with  a  recollection 
of  one  walk  in  the  course  of  which  Marie  dis- 
closed its  plot,  the  romance  was  proudly  entitled 
Le  Proiimenoir  de  M.  de  Montaigne.  The  philos- 
opher received  the  homage  of  his  female  dis- 
ciple with  grateful  feelings.  He  celebrates  the 
friendship  which  came  to  him  so  late  in  a  passage 
at  the  close  of  the  essay  on  Presumption,  a  pas- 
sage added  in  the  posthumous  edition  of  1595, 
which  Mile,  de  Gournay  herself  saw  through  the 
press.  In  her  edition  of  1635,  dedicated  to  Car- 
dinal Richelieu,  the  old  lady,  who  then  seemed 
to  belong  to  a  remote  generation  of  the  past, 
modestly  suppressed  her  own  praises,  and  apolo- 
gised for  this  audacious  modesty. 

On  October  15,  1588,  the  States  General  met 

at  Blois.    Montaigne  was  present  not  in  an  official 

capacity  but  as  an  interested  observer.     There, 

renewing  his  former  acquaintance,  he  discussed 

347 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

public  affairs  with  De  Thou.  There  he  hstened, 
silently  and  no  doubt  smilingly,  to  Pasquier  as 
he  pointed  out  the  atrocious  Gasconisms  of  the 
language  of  the  Essays;  the  critic  was  confident 
that  he  had  made  an  impression,  but  the  Gascon- 
isms reappear  in  the  posthumous  text,  although 
the  author  had  made  careful  preparations  for  the 
edition  which  he  did  not  live  to  superintend. 
There,  too,  he  conversed  with  the  King's  geogra- 
pher, De  Laval,  and  it  has  been  plausibly  con- 
jectured that  certain  annotations  made  by  Laval 
upon  the  Essays  may  contain  traces  of  the  con- 
versations at  Blois. 

The  assassination  of  Guise,  during  the  session 
of  the  States  General  at  Blois,  was  avenged  before 
many  months  by  the  assassination  of  the  French 
King,  who  had  distributed  the  daggers  to  his  mur- 
derers. In  August,  1589,  the  King  of  Navarre 
became  the  King  of  France,  though  not  as  yet 
with  an  undisputed  title.  Montaigne  had  returned 
to  Bordeaux  before  the  startling  event  of  the  pre- 
ceding Christmas-tide.  The  vigorous  rule  of 
Matignon,  shown  in  his  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits 
from  the  city,  had  preserved  Bordeaux  from  the 
domination  of  the  League.  We  cannot  doubt  that 
Montaigne  was  hopeful  that  the  poor  vessel, 
France,  would  at  length  right  herself  under  the 
steerage  of  so  skilful  and  prudent  a  helmsman  as 
Henri  IV.  Three  days  after  the  battle  of  Coutras, 
348 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

in  October,  1587,  Henri  had  visited  for  the  second 
time  the  chateau  of  Montaigne.  It  is  doubtless 
the  King  whom  Montaigne  describes,  without 
naming  him,  in  the  essay  on  the  Management 
of  the  Will,  applauding  him  for  his  tranquil  self- 
possession  and  freedom  of  spirit  in  the  conduct 
of  great  and  thorny  affairs — "I  find  him  greater 
and  more  capable  in  ill  fortune  than  in  good ;  his 
losses  are  more  glorious  than  his  victories,  and 
his  mourning  than  his  triumph."  Montaigne  was 
well  aware — so,  recalling  a  conversation,  reports 
Agrippa  d'Aubigne — that  in  reaching  the  throne 
the  last  step  was  the  highest  and  most  difficult  of 
all.  He  did  not  live  to  hear  of  the  meeting  of 
the  States  General  at  the  Louvre,  in  January, 
1593,  the  reconciliation  of  Henri  to  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  the  submission  of  Paris  to  the  King. 
But  before  the  battle  of  Ivry  he  could  see  whither 
things  were  tending.  In  two  admirable  letters 
addressed  by  Montaigne  to  Henri,  in  reply  to 
letters  from  the  King,  he  unites  entire  loyalty  with 
a  gracious  independence.  In  the  earlier,  dated 
January  18,  1590,  he  congratulates  the  King  on 
the  successes  which  had  attended  his  arms,  and 
expresses  his  hope  that  the  tide  of  popular  favour 
had  now  begun  to  flow  in  his  direction;  at  the 
same  time  he  regrets  that  any  of  the  King's  suc- 
cesses should  have  been  tarnished  by  the  violence 
or  rapacity  of  his  soldiery ;  he  could  have  wished 
349 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

that  Henri  had  had  the  opportunity  as  a  victor 
of  being  more  generous  to  his  mutinous  subjects 
than  their  own  leaders  had  shown  themselves. 
The  welfare  of  King  and  people  are  in  truth 
essentially  bound  together;  it  was  to  be  desired 
that  every  good  fortune  which  befell  the  King 
should  cause  him  to  be  rather  loved  than  feared 
by  his  subjects.  Such  thoughts  and  aspirations 
as  these  speak  nobly  for  the  writer's  heart  and 
intellect.  The  second  letter,  written  in  Septem- 
ber of  the  same  year,  declares  his  zeal  to 
obey  certain  commands  of  the  King,  which  re- 
quired that  he  should  hold  personal  communica- 
tion with  Matignon.  In  response  to  some  pro- 
posal that  he  should  attend  upon  Henri  and 
receive  a  recompense  for  his  services,  he  professes 
with  an  honourable  pride  that  whatever  duties  he 
may  at  any  time  have  rendered  to  the  throne  were 
disinterested  and  unrewarded :  "  I  am,  Sire,  as 
rich  as  I  wish  to  be.  When  I  shall  have  exhausted 
my  purse  in  attendance  on  Your  Majesty  in  Paris, 
I  shall  make  bold  to  let  you  know  it;  and  then, 
should  you  think  me  worthy  of  being  retained  in 
your  suite,  you  shall  have  me  at  a  cheaper  rate 
than  the  most  insignificant  of  your  officers." 

Montaigne  had  not  the  happiness  to  see  Henri 

IV.  in  the  Louvre,     His  years  were  drawing  to 

a  close.    He  occupied  himself  partly  in  the  affairs 

of  his  estate,  his  husbandry  and  his  vines.     He 

350 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

corresponded  with  the  eminent  scholar,  Justus 
Lipsius,  to  whose  learning  he  does  honour  in  the 
Essays,  and  with  his  ''  fillc  d'alliancc",  Mile,  de 
Gournay ;  but  none  of  these  letters  of  Montaigne 
have  reached  us.  He  gave  much  time  to  revising 
the  Essays  in  their  enlarged  form  of  1588,  and 
to  enlarging  them  yet  further  with  a  view  to  a 
future  edition. 

In  June,  1590,  the  chateau  lost  some  of  its 
brightness.  Leonor,  Montaigne's  only  living 
child,  then  aged  nineteen,  was  married  on  May 
27  to  Fran9ois  de  la  Tour,  and  three  weeks 
later  she  departed  with  her  husband  to  her  new 
home  in  Saintonge.  Next  year,  at  the  close  of 
March,  a  grandchild  of  Montaigne's  was  born,  a 
girl,  to  whom  the  Christian  name,  Fran^oise,  that 
of  Leonor's  mother — the  infant's  godmother — 
was  given.  The  child  was  precocious  at  least  in 
wedlock,  being  married,  with  a  view  to  arrange- 
ments respecting  property,  at  the  age  of  nine  to 
a  husband  aged  six. 

We  possess  but  scanty  memorials  of  Mon- 
taigne's last  illness,  and  yet  enough  to  assure  us 
that  he  foresaw  and  calmly  accepted  the  end. 
The  letter  of  the  poet  Pierre  de  Brach  (who  was 
not  present)  to  Justus  Lipsius  is  one  of  sorrow, 
somewhat  rhetorically  dressed,  and  tells  little  more 
than  that  Montaigne  regretted  that  he  had  no 
one  near  him  "  to  whom  he  could  unfold  the  last 
351 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

conceptions  of  his  soul".  Florimond  de  Ray- 
mond, on  the  other  hand,  speaks  of  Montaigne's 
"  philosophising  between  the  extreme  fits  of  suf- 
fering". Pasquier  states  that  for  three  days  he 
was  without  the  power  of  speech  and  expressed 
his  wishes  by  his  pen;  he  adds  that  he  sum- 
moned certain  gentlemen,  his  neighbours,  to 
bid  them  farewell;  and  it  is  he  who  mentions, 
speaking  from  hearsay,  that  Montaigne  with 
a  pious  gesture  rendered  up  his  soul  to  God  at 
the  moment  of  "  the  elevation  of  the  Corpus 
Domini". 

Bernard  Anthone,  in  his  commentary  on  the 
customs  of  Bordeaux,  relates  what  w-e  can  well 
believe  to  be  founded  on  fact ;  feeling  his  end 
approach,  Montaigne  rose  from  bed,  threw  his 
dressing-gown  around  him,  opened  his  cabinet, 
and  bade  them  summon  all  his  valets  and  other 
legatees,  to  whom  he  paid  in  person  the  bequests 
left  them  by  his  will.  The  immediate  cause  of 
Montaigne's  death  was  said  to  be  the  quinsy ;  but 
his  health  had  long  been  declining.  He  died  on 
September  13,  1592,  when  a  little  more  than  mid- 
way in  the  sixtieth  year  of  his  age.  We  may 
hope  that  the  most  natural  of  all  incidents  was 
accepted  tranquilly  by  Montaigne  and  was  pre- 
ceded by  no  fanfaronade  of  philosophy  or  osten- 
tation of  feelings  that  had  not  been  part  of  the 
habit  of  his  mind. 

352 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

An  entry  written  in  the  Ephcmeridcs  in  an 
unknown  hand  records  that  the  heart  of  Mon- 
taigne was  deposited  in  the  church  of  St.  Michel 
Montaigne,  w^iere  it  is  supposed  to  have  re- 
mained undisturbed.  The  body  was  conveyed  to 
Bordeaux  and  was  placed  in  the  church  of  the 
Feuillants,  May  i,  1593.  An  enlargement  of  the 
church  led  to  the  transfer  of  the  coffin  in  1614 
to  the  crypt  of  a  lateral  chapel.  In  September, 
1800,  a  pompous  translation  of  what  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  remains  of  Montaigne  from  the 
church  to  the  museum  of  the  city  took  place;  it 
was  ascertained  before  long  that  the  honours  had 
been  paid  not  to  the  ashes  of  Montaigne  but  to 
those  of  his  niece.  In  1871,  in  consequence  of  a 
fire,  the  recumbent  statue,  clad  in  armour,  resting 
on  the  sarcophagus,  was  placed  in  the  vestibule  of 
the  Faculties  of  Bordeaux.  Epitaphs  in  Greek 
verse  and  in  Latin  prose,  believed  to  be  the  com- 
positions of  a  Bordeaux  scholar  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  Jean  de  St.  Martin, 
celebrate  the  virtues  and  the  distinctions  of  the 
dead  with  perhaps  a  little  less  vagueness  in  eulogy 
than  is  common  in  such  inscriptions.  The  sage, 
declares  the  Greek  epitaph,  allied  to  the  dogma 
of  Christ  the  scepticism  of  Pyrrho.  The  words 
in  Latin  tell  of  his  incomparable  judgment,  his 
wide  sympathies,  his  incapacity  either  to  flatter  or 
to  wound,  the  becoming  close  to  his  admirable 
22,  353 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

life,  and  the  devotion  of  Montaigne's  widow  to 
his  memory. 

Mme.  de  Montaigne  lost  her  husband  when 
she  was  forty-eight  years  of  age.  She  lived  to  be 
eighty-three.  In  all  that  concerned  the  fame  of 
her  husband  she  was  deeply  interested ;  and,  de- 
vout as  she  was,  she  was  resolute  in  asserting  her 
rights  to  do  his  memory  all  due  honour,  when 
the  religious  men  of  the  Church  of  the  Feuillants 
found  it  convenient  to  neglect  their  engagements 
respecting  his  place  of  burial.  To  her  excellent 
judgment  and  loyal  regard  for  her  husband's 
wishes  we  owe  the  first  text  of  the  Essays. 
During  his  declining  days  Montaigne  had  kept 
before  him  a  copy  of  the  edition  of  1588  and  had 
covered  the  margins  with  innumerable  additions 
and  alterations;  he  had  revised  the  spelling  of 
words,  and  in  a  considerable  degree  altered  his 
system  of  punctuation,  partly  with  a  view  to 
breaking  up  sentences  that  straggled  to  excessive 
length;  he  had  written  directions  to  guide  the 
printer.  The  copy  of  the  book  which  he  had 
thus  prepared  is  doubtless  that  which  at  present 
is  a  chief  treasure  of  the  public  library  of  the  city 
of  Bordeaux.  The  posthumous  edition,  seen 
through  the  press  at  Paris,  by  Mile,  de  Gournay, 
and  published  in  folio  by  Abel  L'Angelier  in  the 
year  1595,  differs  in  many  details  from  the  manu- 
script text  on  the  margins  of  the  Bordeaux  copy. 
354 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

To  some  extent  modifications  may  have  been 
deemed  necessary  or  advisable  by  Mile,  de  Gour- 
nay,  but  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time  she 
seems  to  have  executed  her  task  with  substantial 
fidelity.  A  second  corrected  copy,  differing  in 
details  from  that  which  remains,  may  have  dis- 
appeared; more  probably  the  additional  correc- 
tions and  alterations  may  have  been  inserted  by 
Montaigne  on  loose  slips  of  paper  which,  after 
use  had  been  made  of  them,  were  not  preserved. 
Until  after  she  had  completed  her  preparation  of 
the  edition  of  1595,  Montaigne's  "  fille  d' alli- 
ance" was  not  an  inmate  of  the  chateau.  She 
acknowledges  her  obligations  to  Pierre  de  Brach, 
the  poet  of  Bordeaux  and  the  friend  of  the  Essay- 
ist. It  seems  to  be  certain  that  Mme.  de  Mon- 
taigne placed  the  manuscript  material  in  the 
hands  of  De  Brach,  and  that  he  furnished  Mile,  de 
Gournay  with  the  copy  on  which  she  and  the 
printers  went  to  work.  No  quarrels  of  authors 
arose;  all  parties,  as  far  as  we  can  perceive, 
laboured  harmoniously  together,  and  when  her 
toil  of  some  nine  months  was  at  an  end,  Mile,  de 
Gournay  visited  Montaigne's  widow  and  daugh- 
ter and  found  herself  among  the  places  with  which 
the  memories  of  her  spiritual  father  were  most 
closely  associated.  There  are  some  readers  who 
prefer  the  form  of  the  Essays  which  their  author 
had  himself  put  forth  in  1588  to  the  more  en- 
355 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

cumbered  and  sometimes  interrupted  mass  of 
reflections  and  reminiscences  which  make  up  the 
posthumous  edition.  But  the  gains  must  be  set 
over  against  the  losses.  Much  that  is  valuable, 
much  that  is  characteristic  is  to  be  found  only 
in  the  edition  of  1595.  An  author  has  a  right  to 
present  his  work  as  he  deems  best,  and  though 
Montaigne  did  not  live  to  bestow  his  own  care 
upon  the  Essays  as  they  reached  the  press  in  their 
final  form,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  posthumous 
edition  approximates  closely  to  what  he  would 
have  desired  to  see. 

Montaigne's  daughter  lost  her  husband  in  1594, 
four  years  after  her  marriage.  In  1608  she  be- 
came the  wife  of  Charles  de  Gamaches,  who  took 
up  his  abode  in  the  chateau,  then  the  property  of 
Leonor.  There  was  composed  his  volume  di- 
rected against  the  principles  of  the  Reformed 
Faith,*  but  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  atmosphere 
of  the  tower  imparted  literary  inspiration  to  Mon- 
taigne's son-in-law;  such  interest  as  his  work 
possesses  must  be  sought  in  its  references  to  the 
kinsfolk  and  descendants  of  Montaigne.  The 
little  girl,  child  of  Leonor's  first  husband,  who 
had  gone  through  the  form  of  marriage  with 
Honore  de  Lur,  a  child  younger  than  herself, 

*  Le   Sense   raisonnant  sur   les  passages   de   V£criture- 
Saincte  contre  les  pretcndus  rcformez. 
356 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

died  twelve  years  later  (1612)  in  giving  birth  to 
a  son.  This  Charles  de  Lur  was  killed  at  the 
siege  of  Salces  in  Roussillon  in  1639,  and  left  no 
offspring.  By  her  marriage  with  Charles  de 
Gamaches,  Leonor  became  mother  of  a  second 
daughter,  who  at  seventeen  found  a  husband  in 
the  brother-in-law  of  her  half-sister.  Through 
this  granddaughter  of  Montaigne — Marie  de  Lur 
— his  posterity  has  been  continued  to  our  own 
days.  Leonor  died  in  1616,  leaving  the  little 
Marie  to  be  the  comfort  of  Mme.  de  Montaigne's 
old  age.  Her  father's  library  was  bequeathed  by 
Leonor  to  M.  de  Rochefort,  grand-vicar  of  the 
archbishopric  of  Auch.  The  chateau  remained  in 
the  possession  of  descendants  of  Montaigne  until 
the  year  181 1. 

To  trace  the  influence  of  Montaigne  on  French 
and  on  English  literature  is  beyond  the  scope  of 
this  volume.  It  would  be  of  deep  interest  to  study 
the  impression  made  by  Montaigne's  writings 
upon  the  mind  of  Pascal,  the  acceptance  and  the 
more  vehement  rejection  of  his  spirit  and  his 
philosophical  doctrine  by  a  spirit  having  certain 
points  of  kinship  and  much  more  of  contrast  or 
opposition  to  his  own.  The  reader  must  seek  for 
the  history  of  this  contention  of  two  great  minds 
in  Sainte-Beuve's  volumes  upon  Port-Royal.  In 
England  from  the  first  Montaigne  was  accepted 
almost  as  if  he  had  been  an  English  writer. 
357 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

Within  a  few  years  after  their  author's  death  the 
Essays  were  translated  by  Florio  in  a  version 
which,  if  it  sometimes  departs  widely  from  the 
original,  has  the  merit  of  being  written  in  the 
vivid  and  picturesque  language  of  the  time  of 
Elizabeth.  From  Hamlet  to  The  Tempest — if 
not  in  earlier  plays — traces  of  Montaigne  may  be 
found  in  Shakespeare.  A  copy  of  Florio's  trans- 
lation, with  what  may  be  the  autograph  signature 
of  Shakespeare  on  the  fly-leaf,  is  in  the  British 
Museum.  There,  also,  is  the  copy  of  the  Essays 
possessed  by  Ben  Jonson.  The  title  of  the  most 
popular  of  the  writings  of  Bacon — that  which 
most  came  home  to  men's  business  and  bosoms — 
is  taken  from  Montaigne.  In  the  first  of  Bacon's 
essays  Montaigne  is  quoted,  and  with  a  reference 
to  Bacon's  source.  Sir  William  Cornwallis,  the 
younger,  adopted  for  his  volume  of  1600  the  same 
title — Essays — and  in  the  Second  Part,  published 
in  1610,  he  claimed  that  title  as  appropriate  rather 
for  'prentice  work  like  his  own  than  for  such 
accomplished  writings  as  those  of  Montaigne, 
which  "  are  able  to  endure  the  sharpest  trial". 
During  the  contention  between  Roundhead  and 
Cavalier  the  temperate  wisdom  of  Montaigne  was 
not  much  to  the  mind  of  the  embittered  parties, 
though  at  such  a  time  its  lessons  would  have  been 
most  seasonable.  But  the  Essays  had  at  no  time 
two  better  readers  than  in  the  second  half  of  the 
358 


MONTAIGNE    THE    MAYOR 

seventeenth  century.  One  of  these  was  Charles 
Cotton,  whose  translation  has  justly  been  es- 
teemed a  masterpiece.  The  other  was  George  Sa- 
vile,  Marquis  of  Halifax,  to  whom  Cotton  dedi- 
cated his  translation.  The  admirable  author  of 
The  Character  of  a  Trimmer  was  by  the  very 
constitution  of  his  mind  a  spiritual  kinsman  of 
Montaigne,  whose  Essays  he  describes  as  "  the 
book  in  the  world  I  am  best  entertained  with". 
Halifax  writes  to  Cotton  with  the  highest  satis- 
faction in  his  work  as  a  translator — to  Cotton 
alone  he  yields  in  his  devotion  to  Montaigne  "  as 
to  a  more  prosperous  lover".  But  Cotton  him- 
self frankly  acknowledges  that  he  had  found  the 
Essays  "  the  hardest  book  to  make  a  justifiable 
version  of  that  I  yet  ever  saw  in  that,  or  any  other 
language  I  understand" ;  and  it  is  true  that 
spirited  and  vigorous  as  his  translation  is,  it  has, 
in  not  a  few  instances,  missed  the  meaning  of  the 
original.  Unhappily  the  correctors  of  Cotton  do 
not  always  mend  the  matter,  and  sometimes  they 
make  the  departures  from  the  sense  of  Montaigne 
still  wider.  A  translation  substantially  that  of 
Cotton,  but  freed  from  Cotton's  errors,  and  indi- 
cating, as  far  as  could  conveniently  be  done,  the 
chronology  of  passages — those  of  1580,  those  of 
1588,  and  those  of  1595 — is  still  a  thing  to  be 
desired.  No  single  French  edition  adequately 
presents  the  successive  states  of  the  text;   but  an 

359 


MICHEL    DE    MONTAIGNE 

advance  in  the  direction  of  such  an  edition  has 
been  made  by  reprints  of  the  three  original  texts, 
and  by  the  collation  made  by  MM.  Courbet  and 
Royer  of  the  latest  of  these  with  the  manuscript 
annotations  in  the  Bordeaux  copy  of  the  last  edi- 
tion personally  superintended  by  tlie  author. 


360 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A    LIST    OF    AUTHORITIES    ON    MON- 
TAIGNE 

The  earliest  editions  of  the  Essais  were  A. 
B  our  deans,  par  S.  Millangcs:  1580,  two  parts  in 
one  volume,  8vo;  1582,  8vo  (same  place  and 
publisher);  1587,  Paris,  Jean  Richer,  i2mo; 
1588,  Paris,  Abel  L'Angelier,  in  quarto  (second 
form  of  the  Essais);  1593,  Lyon,  8vo;  1595, 
Paris,  Abel  L'Angelier,  folio  (third  form  of  the 
Essais). 

Montaigne's  translation.  La  theologie  naturelle 
de  Raymond  Sehon  .  .  .  appeared,  without  the 
translator's  name,  in  Paris;  Gille  Gourbin,  1569, 
8vo.  It  was  republished,  Paris,  Guillaume  Chau- 
diere,  1581,  8vo. 

In  what  follows  I  do  not  attempt  an  extended 
bibliography,  contenting  myself  with  a  list  of 
books  which  are  in  my  own  possession ;  but  they 
include,  with  several  of  slight  value,  those  of  chief 
importance.  I  have  not  included  historical  works, 
histories  of  French  literature,  Shakespeare  and 
Montaigne  books,  nor — except  in  one  instance — 
articles  found  in  periodicals. 
361 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Author  unknown.  Un  Livre  inconnu  attribuable  a 
Montaigne.  Reponse  a  un  Bibliophile  Anglais  par 
Philomneste  Senior.  Bordeaux,  1902,  pp.  40.  Showing 
Antoine  Loysel  to  be  the  author  of  L'Giil  des  Kois  .... 

BiGORiE  DE  Laschamps  (F.).  Michel  de  Montaigne.  Paris 
and  Rennes,  1855,  pp.  327. 

BiMBiNET  (Eugene).  Les  Essais  de  Montaigne  dans  leurs 
rapports  avec  la  legislation  moderne.  Orleans,  1864, 
PP-  73- 

BiOT  (J.  B.).  Montaigne.  Discours  qui  a  obtenu  une 
mention,  etc.  Paris,  1812,  pp.  68.  Justly  commended 
by  Dr.  Payen. 

Bois-Gallais  (Fr.  Lepelle  de).  Encore  une  Lettre  inedite 
de  Montaigne.     London,  1850,  pp.  32,  with  facsimile. 

Bonnefon  (Paul).  Montaigne.  L'Homvie  et  L'CEuvre. 
Bordeaux  and  Paris,  1893,  4to,  pp.  xiii,  502.  Contains 
many  illustrations. 

Bonnefon  (Paul).  Montaigne  et  ses  Amis.  Paris,  1898, 
2  vols.  8vo,  pp.  413  and  339.  The  last,  with  illustra- 
tions omitted,  but  added  studies  of  La  Boetie,  Charron, 
Mile,  de  Gournay. 

Bonnefon  (Paul).  La  Bibliotheque  de  Montaigne  (article 
in  Revue  d'Histoire  litter  aire  de  la  France,  15  July, 
1895,  pp.  313-371).  The  chapter  on  Montaigne,  La 
Boetie,  Charron,  Du  Vair,  in  L.  Petit  de  Julleville's 
Histoire  .  .  .  de  la  Litterature  fran^aise,  vol.  Ill,  chap. 
8,  is  by  Paul  Bonnefon.     See  La  Boetie. 

Brunet  (Gustave).  Les  Essais  de  Michel  de  Montaigne. 
Lei^ons  inedites.  Paris,  1844,  pp.  51.  Readings  from 
the  Bordeaux  copy  of  the  Essais,  with  Montaigne's 
autograph  corrections  and  additions. 

Catalan  (£tienne).  Etudes  sur  Montaigne.  Analyse  de 
sa  Philosophic.  Paris  and  Lyon,  1846,  pp.  350.  Intro- 
duction and  extracts. 

Champion  (Edme).  Introduction  aiix  Essais  de  Mon- 
taigne. Paris,  1900,  pp.  313.  A  clever,  brightly-written 
study. 

362 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Church  (R.  W.,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's).  Miscellaneous  Es- 
says. London,  1888.  The  Essays  of  Montaigne  occu- 
pies pp.  1-85.    Originally  in  Oxford  Essays,  1857. 

Collins  (W.  Lucas).  Montaigne.  Edinburgh  and  Lon- 
don, 1879,  pp.  192.  In  foreign  Classics  for  English 
Readers.    An  informing  and  popular  little  book. 

Cotton  (Charles).  Essays  of  Michael  Seigneur  de  Mon- 
taigne. Fourth  edition,  171 1,  3  vols.  First  published 
in  1685. 

Cotton  (Charles).  Essays  of  Montaigne.  .  .  .  Edited  by 
W.  Carew  Hazlitt.  London,  1902,  4  vols.  Some  re- 
vision, not  always  successful,  is  attempted.  Letters  are 
included. 

De  Gourgues  (Alexis).  Reflexions  sur  la  Vie  et  le  Carac- 
tcre  de  Montaigne.  Bordeaux,  1856,  pp.  85.  Some 
documents  of  interest. 

Denis  (Ferdinand).  Une  Fete  Brcsilicnne  celebree  a 
Rouen  en  1550.    Paris,  185 1,  pp.  104. 

Devienne  (Dom).  Dissertation  sur  la  Religion  de  Mon- 
taigne.    Bordeaux,  1773,  pp.  32. 

Dezeimeris  (Reinhold).  Notice  sur  Pierre  de  Brach. 
Paris,  1858,  pp.  133. 

Dezeimeris  (Reinhold).  De  la  Renaissance  des  Lettres 
a  Bordeaux  au  xvi^  siecle.    Bordeaux,  1864,  pp.  66. 

Dezeimeris  (Reinhold).  Recherches  sur  I'auteiir  des  £pi- 
taphes  de  Montaigne.  Paris,  1864,  pp.  83,  with  fac- 
simile. 

Dezeimeris  (Reinhold).  Recherches  sur  la  Recension  du 
Texte  posthume  des  Essais  de  Montaigne.  Bordeaux, 
1866,  pp.  31  -j-  15. 

Dezeimeris  (Reinhold).  Plan  d'Execution  d'une  Edition 
critique  des  Essais  de  Montaigne.  Bordeaux,  1903, 
pp.  24. 

Droz  (Joseph).  Eloge  sur  Montaigne.  Paris,  1812,  pp. 
38. 

DuMONT  (Leon).  La  Morale  dc  Montaigne.  Valen- 
ciennes and  Paris,  1866,  pp.  48.     An  adverse  criticism. 

363 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

DuTENS  (J.).  £loge  dc  Michel  de  Montaigne.  Paris,  1818, 
pp.  76. 

Emerson  (R.  W.).  Representative  Men:  Montaigne  or 
the  Sceptic.  These  lectures  were  given  in  1845-46; 
published  1850. 

Faguet  (£mile).  Seisieme  Steele.  Paris,  1894.  Montaigne 
occupies  pp.  365-421.  Life  and  character;  his  design; 
scepticism ;  dogmatism ;  man  of  the  Renaissance ;  so- 
ciologist ;  painter  of  his  time ;  the  writer.  An  ad- 
mirable piece  of  criticism. 

Faugere  (A.  Prosper).  Du  Courage  Civil  ou  L'Hopital 
ches  Montaigne.  Discours  qui  a  remporte  le  Prix 
d'Eloquence  .  .  1836.  Publication  of  the  Institute,  pp.  2,7- 

Favre  (Mme.  Jules).  Montaigne,  Moraliste  et  Peda- 
gogue.    Paris,  1887,  pp.  341. 

Feugere  (Leon).  Etienne  de  la  Bo'etie,  ami  de  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1845,  pp.  309.  To  a  great  extent  superseded  by 
Bonnefon's  edition  of  La  Boetie. 

Feugere  (Leon).  Caracteres  et  Portraits  litteraires  du 
xvie  siecle.  Paris,  1850,  2  vols.,  pp.  516  and  503.  La 
Boetie  (the  last  reprinted)  and  Montaigne,  vol.  I,  pp. 

I-I35- 

Feuillet  de  Conches  (F.).  Causeries  d'un  Curieux. 
Tome  Troisieme.  Paris,  1864,  pp.  568.  Lettres  de 
Montaigne,  pp.  231-360. 

Florio  (John).  Essays  .  .  .  done  into  English  .  .  .  Lon- 
don, 1613,  pp.  630.  First  published  in  1603,  again  in 
1632.  Reprint,  6  vols.,  in  Dent's  The  Temple  Classics; 
also  in  Nutt's  Tudor  Translations. 

Galy  (E.)  and  Lapeyre  (L.).  Montaigne  ches  lui.  Peri- 
gueux,  1861,  pp.  69.  Describes  the  chateau,  with  plan; 
gives  the  inscriptions. 

Gauthiez  (Pierre).  Etudes  sur  le  Seisieme  Siecle.  Paris, 
1893.  Contains  studies  of  Rabelais,  Calvin,  and  Mon- 
taigne. 

Grun  (Alphonse).  Montaigne  Magistral.  Paris,  1854, 
pp.  48.     Superseded  by  the  next  item. 

364 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Grun  (Alphonse).  La  Vie  publiquc  de  Montaigne.  Paris, 
1855,  pp.  414.  Important,  but  exaggerates  the  "  public 
life". 

GuizoT  (Guillaume).  Jeunesse  de  Montaigne,  and  Mon- 
taigne et  Ics  Lois  de  son  temps  (in  Revue  dcs  Corns 
litteraires,  13  and  20  January,  1866).  Also  Montaigne, 
1899,  with  preface  by  £.  Faguet. 

Hazlitt  (W.)  The  IVorks  of  Montaigne.  London,  1865. 
Cotton's  translation,  with  an  attempted  revision.  Trav- 
els, Letters,  Bibliography  (from  Dr.  Payen),  and  sub- 
sidiary matter. 

H^MON  (Felix).  Montaigne.  Paris,  1892.  In  Cours  de 
Littcrature  a  I'tisage  des  divers  exaniens,  pp.  xxiv,  47, 
4O1  36,  51.  Gives  a  brief  history  of  moral  philosophy 
in  France ;  studies  on  Essays  on  Friendship,  Educa- 
tion ;  Montaigne  as  a  Moralist ;  Essays  on  Books.  A 
useful  little  book. 

James  (Constantin).  Montaigne.  Ses  Peregrinations 
d,  quelques  Eaux  mincrales  (Feuilleton  in  Gazette  med- 
icate de  Paris,  June-July,  1859).  Republished  in  a 
volume,  1859. 

JuBiNAL  (Achille).  Une  Lettre  inedite  de  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1850,  pp.  116. 

KuHN  (Emil).  Die  Bedeutung  Montaignes  filr  unsere 
Zeit.     Strassburg,  1904,  pp.  80. 

La  Boetie.  Le  Reveille-Matin  des  Francois,  et  de  leurs 
Voisins.  ...  A.  Edimbourg,  1574.  Contains  a  frag- 
ment of  La  Boetie's  Discours  de  la  Servitude  volon- 
taire,  printed  for  the  first  time. 

La  Boetie  (£tienne  de).  La  Mesnagerie  de  Xenophon, 
etc.  .  .  .  Item,  un  Discours  sur  la  mart  du  dit  Seig- 
neur De  la  Boetie,  par  M.  de  Montaigne.  Paris,  1571, 
fF.  131.     A  rare  and  interesting  book. 

La  Boetie  (Etienne  de).  Memoires  de  I'Estat  de  France 
sous  Charles  IX.,  1577-78,  3  vols.  Prints  for  the  first 
time  the  Servitude  voluntaire  in  vol.  Ill,  pp.  83-99.  The 
first  edition  of  Memoires  (1576),  is  of  extreme  rarity. 

365 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

La  Boetie  (fixiENNE  de).  CEiivres  completes  (ed.  P.  Bon- 
nefon).     Bordeaux  and  Paris,  1892,  pp.  Ixxxv,  444. 

La  Dixmerie  (M.  de).  Eloge  analytique  et  historique  de 
Michel  Montaigne.    Amsterdam,  1781,  pp.  396. 

Lanusse  (Maxime).  Montaigne.  Paris,  1895,  pp.  240. 
In  Collection  des  Classiques  populaires.  Biography 
slight ;    criticism  excellent. 

Leveaux  (Alphonse).  Etude  sur  les  Essais  de  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1870,  pp.  473. 

Lowndes  (M.  E.).  Michel  de  Montaigne,  a  Biographical 
Study.  Cambridge,  1898,  pp.  286.  A  scholarly  and  sub- 
stantial piece  of  work. 

Malvezin  (Theophile).  Michel  de  Montaigne,  son  orig- 
ine  et  sa  famille.  Bordeaux,  1875,  pp.  344.  Impor- 
tant. 

Malvezin  (Theophile).  Notes  sur  la  Maison  d'Habita- 
tion  de  Michel  de  Montaigne  a  Bordeaux.  Bordeaux, 
1889,  pp.  63,  with  plans  and  illustrations. 

Marionneau  (Ch.).  Une  Visite  aux  Ruines  du  Chateau 
de  Montaigne.  Bordeaux,  1885,  pp.  24.  Written  after 
the  fire  which  destroyed  the  chateau. 

Mazure  (F.  a.  J.).  £loge  de  Montaigne.  Paris  and  An- 
gers, 1814,  pp.  51- 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Livre  des  Essais  .  .  .  divise  en 
deux  parties.  ...  A.  Lyon,  1593.  First  Book,  pp.  318. 
Second  Book  (with  separate  title),  pp.  819.  A  rare 
edition,  giving  the  text  of  1588. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Essais  de  Michel  Seigneur  de 
Montaigne.  Paris,  Chez  Jean  Petit-pas,  1608.  Rare. 
First  appearance  of  J.  de  Leu's  portrait  of  Montaigne. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Les  Essais  .  .  .  avecque  la  vie 
de  I'Autheur.  Paris,  1635,  folio.  Mile,  de  Gournay's 
last  edition,  with  revised  text  and  a  long  Preface. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Essais.  Ed.  J-V.  Le  Clerc. 
Study  by  Provost-Paradol.  Paris,  1865,  4  vols.  A  use- 
ful and  well-printed  edition,  with  valuable  supple- 
mentary matter  in  vol.  IV. 

366 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Essais.  .  .  .  Texte  original  de 
1580.  .  .  .  ed.  R.  Dezeimeris  et  H.  Barckhausen.  Paris 
and  Bordeaux,  vol.  I,  1870;  vol.  II,  1873.  Publications 
of  the  Societe  des  Bibliophiles  de  Guyenne.  Essential 
for  study. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Les  Essais  de  Montaigne  pub- 
lics d'aprcs  I'cdition  de  1588.  Ed.  H.  Motheau  et  D. 
Jouaust.  Paris,  7  vols.,  n.  d.  (Nouvelle  Bibliotheque 
classiques  des  editions  Jouaust).  There  is  also  a  four- 
volume  edition  of  the  same.     Essential  for  study. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Les  Essais.  .  .  .  Ed.  E.  Cour- 
bet  and  Ch.  Royer.  Paris,  5  vols.,  1872-1900.  The 
text  of  1595,  with  variants  of  earlier  editions  and  of 
the  annotated  copy  in  the  public  library  of  Bordeaux. 
Essential  for  study. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Essais.  .  .  .  Ed.  Charles  Louan- 
dre.  Paris,  n.  d.,  4  vols.  Called  an  "  edition  vario- 
rum", but  not  so  in  any  full  sense ;  convenient  and 
useful  and  well  indexed. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  Journal  du  Voyage  de  Michel 
de  Montaigne  en  Italie  .  .  .  avec  des  Notes  par  M.  de 
Querlon.  Rome  and  Paris,  1774,  2  vols.,  pp.  cviii, 
324  and  601.  Also  published  in  one  volume,  quarto, 
same  date,  and  three  volumes,  i2mo. 

Montaigne  (Michel  de).  The  same,  edited  by  Professor 
Alessandro  D'Ancona.  Citta  di  Castello,  1905,  pp.  Iv 
-\-  719.  An  elaborate  and  valuable  edition,  with  the 
title  L'ltalia  alia  fine  del  secolo  xvi^,  giornale  del 
viaggio  di  Michele  de  Montaigne  in  Italia  ncl  1580  e 
1581. 

Neyrac  (Joseph).  Montaigne:  Le  Chateau,  Montaigne 
intitne,  Pierre  Magne,  La  Paroisse.  Bergerac,  1904, 
pp.  338.  Montaigne  posed  a  little  too  much  as  a  Catho- 
lic saint ;    but  has  some  local  interest. 

Norton  (Grace).  Studies  in  Montaigne;  and  The  Early 
Writings  of  Montaigne,  and  Other  Papers.  New  York, 
1904,  2  vols.,  pp.  290  and  218, 

367 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Owen  (John).  Skeptics  of  the  French  Renaissance.  Lon- 
don, 1893. 

Pater  (Walter).  Gaston  de  Latour.  London,  1896  (pre- 
viously in  Macmillan's  Magasine,  1889).  Chapter  V., 
Suspended  Judgment,  gives  one  aspect  of  Montaigne's 
way  of  thought  with  Pater's  happiest  art ;  in  great 
part  a  mosaic  made  from  the  Essays. 

Pa  YEN  (J.-F.).  Notice  Bibliographique  sur  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1837,  pp.  76. 

Payen  (J.-F.).  Documents  inedits  .  .  .  sur  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1847. 

Payen  (J.-F.)  Nouveaux  Documents  inedits  ou  peu  con- 
nus  sur  Montaigne.  Paris,  1850,  pp.  68,  with  fac- 
similes. 

Payen  (J.-F.).  Documents  inedits  sur  Montaigne.  No.  3. 
Paris,  1855,  pp.  40,  with  facsimiles. 

Payen  (J.-F.).  Rccherches  sur  Montaigne,  documents  in- 
edits. No.  4.  Paris,  1856,  pp.  68,  facsimiles,  plans, 
and  lithographs. 

Payen  (J.-F.).  Rccherches  sur  Michel  Montaigne.  Cor- 
respondence relative  a  sa  mort.  {Bulletin  du  biblio- 
phile, 1862,  pp.  1291-1311.  All  these  are  important,  but 
are  scarce. 

Prevost-Paradol  (L.-A.).  £tudes  sur  Ics  Moralistes  fran- 
gais.  Paris,  1901.  Ninth  edition.  Montaigne  occupies 
pp.  1-40;   La  Boetie,  pp.  41-78. 

Reaume  (Eugene).  Les  Prosatcurs  frangais  du  xvic 
siecle.     Paris,  i86g.    Montaigne  occupies  pp.  145-179. 

RiCHOU  (Gabriel).  Inventaire  de  la  Collection  des  Ouv- 
rages  et  Documents  sur  Michel  de  Montaigne  reunis 
par  le  Dr.  J.-F.  Payen  et  conserves  a  la  Bibliotheque 
Nationale.  Bordeaux,  1877,  PP-  ^vii,  397.  (Tablettes 
des  Bibliophiles  de  Guyenne.)  Contains  correspond- 
ence of  Montaigne's  widow.)  A  most  useful  bibli- 
ography. 

Ruel  (fioouARD).  Du  Sentiment  artistique  dans  la  Morale 
de  Montaigne.    CEuvre  posthume.    Paris,  1902,  pp.  Ixiv 

368 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(Preface  by  fi.  Faguet)  and  431.  A  remarkable  book, 
but  somewhat  diffuse. 

Russell  (Sir  E.  R.).  A  French  Gentleman  of  the  Six- 
teenth Century.  Liverpool,  n.  d.  (PiSqi),  pp.  27.  A 
lecture. 

Sainte-Beuve  (C.  a.).  Port-Royal.  Paris,  1888  (fifth 
edition),  B.  Ill,  Chaps.  1-3  (in  vol.  II).  Very  valua- 
ble, suggestive  criticism,  but  written  when  Pascal  could 
deflect  Sainte-Beuve's  criticism. 

Sainte-Beuve  (C.  A.).  Causeries  du  Lundi,  IV.  Paris, 
1852.  Nouveaux  Documents  sur  Montaigne,  pp. 
65-80. 

Sainte-Beuve  (C.  A.).  Nouveaux  Lundis,  II.  Paris,  1864. 
Montaigne  en  Voyage,  pp.  155-176. 

Sainte-Beuve  (C.  A.).  Nouveaux  Lundis,  VI.  Paris, 
1866.    Montaigne,  Maire  de  Bordeaux,  pp.  239-264. 

Sainte-Beuve  (C.  A.).  Nouveaux  Lundis,  IX.  fitienne 
de  la  Boetie,  pp.  1 12-128. 

St.  Germain  (le  Dr.  Bertrand  de).  Visite  au  Chateau 
de  Montaigne  en  Perigord.     Paris,  1850,  pp.  15. 

ScHWABE  (Paul).  Michel  de  Montaigne  als  philosoph- 
isclier  Charakter.  Hamburg,  1899,  pp.  190.  The  me- 
diaeval and  Renaissance  Montaignes  in  conflict. 

Staffer  (Paul).  Montaigne.  Paris,  1895,  pp.  198.  In 
Les  grands  Ecrivains  frangais  series.  An  excellent  lit- 
tle book. 

Staffer  (Paul).  La  Famille  ct  les  Amis  de  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1896,  pp.  361. 

Stephen  (Sir  J.  Fitzjames).  Horce  Sabbaticae.  First 
series.  London,  1892.  Montaigne's  Essays,  pp.  124- 
144. 

St.  John  (Bayle).  Montaigne  the  Essayist.  London, 
1858,  2  vols.,  pp.  336  and  327.  Too  diffuse,  but  pleas- 
antly written  and  the  result  of  much  study. 

Talbert  (M.  l'Abbe).  £loge  de  Michel  Montaigne.  Lon- 
don and  Paris,  1775,  pp.  146.  Some  interesting  matter 
in  the  notes. 

24  369 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

TiLLEY  (Arthur).  The  Literature  of  the  French  Renais- 
sance. Cambridge,  1904,  2  vols.  (Montaigne,  vol.  II, 
pp.  136-179) 

Vernier  (Theodore).  Notices  et  Observations  pour  pre- 
parer et  faciliter  la  Lecture  des  Essais  de  Montaigne. 
Paris,  1810,  2  vols.,  pp.  331  and  396. 

ViLLEMAiN  (A.-F.).  Rlogc  de  Montaigne,  Discours  qui  a 
remporte  le  prix  d'£loquence,  etc.  Paris,  1812,  pp.  45. 
Eloquent,  but  has  less  in  it  than  Biot's  Discours. 

ViNET  (A.).  Moralistes  des  xvi^  et  xvii<^  Siccles.  Paris, 
1904.     (Montaigne,  pp.  53-123.) 

Waters  (W.  G.).  The  Journal  of  Montaigne's  Travels. 
London,  1903,  3  vols.,  pp.  195,  209,  and  214.  With  an 
interesting  introduction. 

Whibley  (Charles).  Literary  Portraits.  London,  1904. 
Montaigne  occupies  pp.  181-221. 

Edward  Dowden. 


370 


INDEX 


Names  including  dc,  de  la,  du,  are,  for  convenience  of 
reference,  entered  under  the  last  portion  of  the  name. 
Titles  of  works  are  listed  under  their  English  designations 
except  in  cases  where  translation  would  be  misleading,  as 
in  the  main  portion  of  this  book.  The  Index  contains  ref- 
erences to  the  main  portion  of  the  book  only,  not  to  the 
Preface  and  Bibliography. 

Agesilaus,  145 
Agis,  145 

Alarm-clock    for   Frenchmen    {Reveille-Matin    dcs   Fran- 
cois), 77,,  74  n 
Alcibiades,  Montaigne  compared  to,  57,  58 
Alexander  the  Great,  145,  176,  250,  325 
Amadis  of  Gaul,  171 
Ampere,  182 

Amyot,  2)2,  169,  170,  171,  195 
Ancestry,  Montaigne's,  13-15 
Ancona,  Professor  Alessandro  D',  297 
Andelot,  Seigneur  d',  303 
Andouins,  Diane  d',  139,  298,  332 
Angelo,  Michael,  299 
Anjou,  Duke  of,  330 
Anthone,  Bernard,  352 
Antioch,  Patriarch  of,  314 

Apology  for  Raimond  de  Sebonde,  155,  243,  287-291 
Aretino,  Lionardo,  172 
Ariosto,  173,  181 
Arms,  Montaigne's  coat  of,  149 

Arnaud,  Captain  St.  Martin   (Montaigne's  brother),  119 
Arnold,  Matthew,  178 

371 


INDEX 

Arsac,  Jean  d',  71 

Art,  Montaigne's  feeling  for,  299 

Asceticism,  274,  275 

Ascham,  Roger,  27 

Aubigne,  Agrippa  d',  349 

Augsburg,  Montaigne  at,  304,  305 

Authorship  in  Gascony,  245 

Bacon,  Francis,  358 

Bagni  della  Villa,  320,  321 

Baif,  ^^,  87,  133,  175 

Beauregard,  Thomas  de,  18,  100,  loi,  119 

Bellay  (J.),  Du,  ^^,  181 

Bellay,  Martin  du,  191 

Belot,  Jean  de,  90 

Benedict  XIV.,  127 

Beuther,  Michael,  134,  207 

Beze,  176,  181,  317,  318 

Bible,  the,  169,  176,  278,  279 

Biron,  Marshal  de,  323 

Blois,  States  General  at,  347,  348 

Boccaccio,  184 

Bodin,  Jean,  198 

Body  and  soul,  270,  271 

Bonnefon  (P.),  22  n,  39,  68  n,  70,  74  n,  77  n,  86,  86  n,  88  n, 

III,  146  n,  154  n,  167,  176,  192  n 
Book  of  Creatures,  see  Natural  Theology 
Books,  Montaigne's,  157,  158,  166  seq. 
Borda,  Bernard  de,  50 
Bordeaux,  magistracy  of,  50 
Bordeaux,  University  of,  39,  42 
Bossuet,  290 

Bourbon,  Cardinal  de,  331 
Bourg,  Anne  du,  71,  87  n 
Brach,  Pierre  de,  345,  351,  355 
Brachet,  Antoine,  86 
Brantome,  142 

372 


INDEX 

Brazil,  natives  of,  62-64 
Buchanan,  George,  29,  30,  181 
Buffon,  22  n 
Bunel,  Pierre,  124 
Burie,  72 

Cabinet  of  Montaigne,  152,  153 
Caesar,  Julius,  144,  145,  192,  193 
Caesar's  Commentaries,  Montaigne's  copy  of,  167 
Calvin,  11 

Cannibals,  Montaigne  on,  258 
Capello,  Bianca,  312 
Capperonnier,  M.,  296 
Caraffa,  Cardinal,  201,  310 
Car  eel  de  Amor,  172 
Carle,  Marguerite  de,  71,  104,  133 
Carnevalet,  M.  de,  61 
Caro,  Annibale,  174 
Cato,  the  younger,  269 
Catullus,  177 

Cazalis,  Seigneur  de,  298 
Caze,  Jean  de,  51 
Cellini,  306 

Censors  of  books  in  Rome,  317,  318 
Ceremony,  freedom  from,  215 
Charles  IX.,  61,  204,  206 
Charron,  Pierre,  173,  239,  343,  344 
Chateau  Trompette,  329,  333,  334,  336 
Cicero,  199,  200 
Civil  wars,  225,  226 
Cleanthes,  179 

College  of  Guyenne,  19,  20,  27,  72,  326,  327 
Comines,  Philippe  de,  191 
"  Commerces,  the  three",  201-203 

Contr'un,  see  Discourse  Concerning  Voluntary  Servitude 
Conversation,  Montaigne  on,  217-220 
"  Corisande,  La  belle",  139,  298,  332 
373 


INDEX 

Cornwallis,  Sir  William,  the  younger,  358 

Cortez,  274 

Cotton,  Charles,  359 

Councillor,  duties  of  a,  49,  50 

Courbet  (E.),  125  n,  204,  207  n,  360 

Court,  Montaigne  at  the,  59-61,  64,  65 

Cujas,  43 

Daneau,  Lambert,  86,  87  n 

Death,  Montaigne  on,  282-285 

Dezeimeris,  M.,  87  w,  88  71 

Digressions,  Montaigne's,  247 

Diogenes  Laertius,  188 

Discourse  Concerning  Voluntary  Servitude  (La  Boetie's), 

73-85 
Diversion,  Montaigne  on,  106 
Divizia,  321 
Donne,  John,  37 
Dorat,  Jean,  87,  181 
Douhet,  Marguerite,  iii 
Dreux,  battle  of,  144 

Economics  (Xenophon's),  132,  136 

Edict  of  January,  1562;   51,  52,  73 

Education,  Montaigne  on,  24,  31-38 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  305 

Emerson,  108 

Epaminondas,  176,  250,  266 

Ephemerides  (Beuther's),  134,  135  n,  143,  207,  346,  353 

Epitaphs  on  Montaigne,  353 

Erasmus,  33 

Escars,  M.  d',  98 

Essays,  Montaigne's  annotated  copy  of,  175 

when  written,  229 

motives  for  writing,  230,  231 

the  Third  Book  of,  249,  340^343 
Este,  Cardinal  Ippolito  d',  307 
374 


INDEX 

Este,  Cardinal  Luigi  d',  307,  308 

Este,  Duke  of,  298 

Estissac,  Seigneur  d',  298,  311,  322 

Exorcism,  315 

Eyqueni,  Grimon,  14 

Eyquem,   Pierre,   15-17,   18-24,  26,  27,  29,  42,  47, 

124-126 
Eyquem,  Ramon,  13,  14 

Faith  and  reason,  279,  280 

Fernand,  Archduke  of  Austria,  305 

Ferraignes,  Isabeau  de,  13 

Ferron,  Arnaud  de,  132 

Feugere,  Leon,  70 

Feugere,  Pierre,  51 

Florence,  312,  321 

Florio,  116,  123,  180,  358 

Foix,  Diane  de,  31 

Foix,  Gaston  de,  205 

Foix,  Paul  de,  138,  139 

Form  and  matter  in  books,  190,  191 

Fortune,  Montaigne  on,  144,  145,  317,  318 

Four,  Grimon  du,  14 

Franca,  Veronica,  311 

Franciade,  The,  77 

Francis,  Duke  of  Brittany,  116 

Frangois  II.,  61 

French  Verses  (of  La  Boetie),  133 

Friendship,  La  Boetie  on,  84,  85 

Montaigne  on,  85,  86,  93-96 
Froissart,  189 

Gabelle,  revolt  of  the,  40,  41,  76 
Galy,  M.,  145,  146  n,  150  n,  154 
Gamaches,  Charles  de,  356 
Garland,  Pierre,  127 
Garrulity,  Montaigne's,  249 

375 


INDEX 

Gasconisms  of  Montaigne,  296,  348 

Gaujac,  Ramon  de,  13 

Germignan,  98 

Gilles,  Nicolle,  175 

Goulard,  Simon,  74,  74  n 

Gournay,  Mile,  de,  75,  239,  346,  347,  351,  354,  355 

Gouvea,  Andre  de,  20,  27,  30 

Gramont,  Philibert  de,  298 

Gregory  XIII.,  12,  315 

Grouchy,  Nicolas,  29 

Guerente,  Guillaume,  29,  30 

Guicciardini,  191 

Guise,  Duke  of,  62,  144,  170,  207,  208 

Gurson,  Countess  de,  196 

Habits,  Montaigne's,  254,  255 

Hamlet  (Shakespeare),  243,  358 

Hautoi,  Seigneur  du,  298 

Health,  273 

Hemon,  M.,  34 

Henri  II.,  61 

Henri  III.,  206,  297,  323,  330,  333 

Henri  IV.  (Henri  of  Navarre),  135,  148,  207,  208,  325,  330- 

332,  348,  349,  350 
Historians,  three  groups  of,  188-190 
History,  how  read  by  Montaigne,  186-188 
Homer,  154,  169,  176,  177 
Horace,  177 
Horstanus,  25 
Hotman,  303,  304 

Ignorance  of  man,  260-262 

Inconstancy  of  man,  262,  263 

Infirmity  of  man,  264,  265 

Inscriptions  of  Montaigne's  library,  154-157 

James,  King  of  Naples,  203 
Jesuits,  316,  326,  2)^7 

376 


INDEX 

Jews,  307 

Joan  of  Arc,  303 

Joinville,  191 

Jonson,  Ben,  358 

Judgment,  Montaigne's  231,  232 

Julian  the  Apostate,  317,  318 

La  Boetie,  fitienne  de,  44,  48,  53,  69-103,  125  n,  131,  136-138 

La  Boetie,  Mme.  de,  see  Carle,  Marguerite  de 

La  Brousse,  Pierre  de  (Montaigne's  brother),  119 

La  Chassaigne,  Frangoise  de,  see  Montaigne,  Mme. 

(Montaigne's  wife) 
La  Chassaigne,  Joseph  de,  iii 
La  Chassaigne,  President  de,  41 
La  Fere,  297 
Lahontan,  258,  259 
Lamennais,  74 
La  Noue,  224 
Lansac,  M.  de,  136 
Lapeyre,  M.,  145,  146  n,  150  n,  154 
Latin,  Montaigne  learning,  25,  26 
Laval,  De,  348 
Laval,  Gaillard  de,  87 
Laval,  Marguerite  de,  87 
Law,  Montaigne  on,  45-47 
Le  Clerc,  Victor,  127 
Leibnitz,  127 

Lenoncourt,  Cardinal  de,  127  n 
Leonor  (fileanore)    (Montaigne's  daughter),  134,  166,  210, 

213-215,  351,  356,  357 
Leonor  (Montaigne's  sister),  119 
Lestonnac,  Jeanne  de,  18,  29  n,  119 
Lestonnac,  Richard  de,  18,  119 

Letter  of  Consolation  (Plutarch's),  117,  132,  135,  136 
Letter-writing,  Montaigne  on,  173,  174 
L'Hopital,  Chancellor,  51,  72,  137,  138,  181,  205 
Library  of  Montaigne,  150-152 
License  of  Montaigne's  pen,  107-109 
377 


INDEX 

Limitation,  wisdom  in,  265 

Lipsius,  Justus,  345,  351 

Loisel,  Antoine,  328 

Loreto,  319,  320 

Louppes,  Antoine  de,  iii,  112 

Louppes,  Antoinette  de   (Montaigne's  mother),  17,  21,  22, 

119 
Lucan,  177,  179 

Lucca,  Baths  of,  103,  296,  320,  321 
Lucullus,  145 
Lur,  Charles  de,  357 
Lur,  Guillaume  de,  87  n 
Lur,  Honore  de,  356,  357 
Luther,   124 

Magistrate,  Montaigne  as  a,  66-68 

Magne,  M.,  147 

Maldonatus,  302 

Marguerite  of  Navarre,  330 

Marie  (Montaigne's  sister),  119 

Ilarriage,  Montaigne  on,  94,  95,  109-111 

Martin,  Aime,  130  n 

Martin,  Jean,  127  n 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  61 

Matignon,  Marshal  de,  297,  325,  331,  333-335.  337.  345 

Mattecoulon  (Montaigne's  brother,  Bertrand-Charles),  119, 

298,  322 
Mayor  of  Bordeaux,  Montaigne  elected,  321,  322 
Medici,  Cardinal,  310 
Medici,  Catherine  de',  346 

Memoirs  of  the  state  of  France  under  Charles  IX.,  74 
Mesnagerie  de  Xenophon,  La,  132 
Menander,  178 

Mesmes,  Henri  de,  44,  48,  136 
Meusnier  de  Querlon,  297 
Miracles,  291,  292 
Models  for  the  Essays,  248 

378 


INDEX 

Moderation,  duty  of,  266 

Mondore,  181 

Moneins,  Tristan  de,  40-42 

Money,  Montaigne  in  relation  to,  121-124 

Monluc,  54,  308 

Monnier,  Arnaud,  50,  51 

Montaigne,  cliateau  of,  13,  14,  21,  62,  147,  148,  220,  221 

Montaigne,  Mme.  dc  (Montaigne's  wife),  106,  111-114,  354, 

355 
Montaigne,  Michel  de,  passim 
Montaigne,  Pierre  de,  see  Eyquem,  Pierre 
Montesquieu,  22  n 
Montgomery,  61 

Montmorenci,  Constable  de,  41,  50,  224 
Montpensier,  Duke  de,  143 
Monument  to  Montaigne,  141,  353 
Munster,  Sebastian,  175 
Muret,  Marc  Antoine,  29,  30,  40  n,  171 

Natural  Theology  of  Raimond  de  Sebonde,  The,  124-131 
Nature  a  guide,  266 

Montaigne's  feeling  for  external,  299 
"  New  Christians",  17 
Numa,  276 

Ochino,  Bernardino,  173 

Of  the  Eye  of  Kings  and  of  Justice  (De  I'CEil  des  Rois  et 

de  la  Justice),  328 
Offspring  of  mind  and  of  body,  245,  246 
Ogier  the  Dane,  302 
Old  age,  271,  272 
Orleans,  University  of,  44,  71 
Ossat,  M.,  103 
Ovid,  30,  179 

Panicarola,  12 
Papessus,  23 
Paris,  56,  57 

379 


INDEX 

Paris,  Parliament  of,  51,  52 

Parison,  M.,  167,  192 

Pascal,  127,  234,  357 

Pasquier,  £tienne,  43,  44,  348 

Pater   {Gaston  de  Latour),  254 

Paternal  feeling,  Montaigne's,  210-212 

Payen,  Dr.,  134,  149  «,  154,  192  n 

Peasants  of  Italy,  306 

Pelletier,  Jacques,  220 

"  Penitencers",  310 

Perfumes,  277 

Perigueux,  Court  of  Aids  at,  47,  48 

Perron,  Cardinal  du,  280 

Petrarch,  172 

Physic,  Montaigne  on,  176 

Physiognomy,  influence  of  Montaigne's,  222 

Plague  in  Bordeaux,  336,  22>7,  339 

Plato,  184,  272 

Pleasure  an  end,  267,  268 

Pleiad,  the,  181 

Plessis-Mornay,  Du,  330 

Plombieres,  303 

Baths  of,  302 
Plutarch,  32,  169,  188,  195-19? 
"  Poesie  populaire",  182 
Poetic  vocabulary,  182,  183 
Poetry,  Montaigne  on,  184 
Poets,  ancient  and  modern,  178 
Pope,  Alexander,  290,  343 
Portrait  (of  Montaigne)  in  Essays,  234-237 
Pratolino,  307 
Prunis,  Canon,  157,  296 
Psalms,  the,  154,  278 
Puymoreau,  Sieur  de,  40 

Querlon,  Meusnier  de,  297 

Quintus  Curtius,  Montaigne's  copy  of,  168,  169 
380 


INDEX 

Rabelais,  ii,  33,  38,  184,  185 

Ramus,  38 

Raymond,  Florimond  de,  140,  352 

Reading,  Montaigne's  way  of,  185,  186 

Reformation,  Montaigne  on  the,  55,  56 

Reformed  Faith,  275-277 

Religion,  a  popular,  308-311 

Rene  of  Anjou,  61 

Repentance,  Montaigne  on,  280-282 

Reveille-Matin  dcs  Frangois  (Alarm-clock  for  Frenchmen) , 

73,  74  n 
Richelieu,  Cardinal,  74,  347 
Rochefort,  Gaudefroy  de,  166,  357 
Roissy,  Madame  de,  136 
Roman  citizenship,  318,  319 
Rome,  312  seq. 
Ronsard,  77,  87,  181 
Rotrou,  337 
Rouen,  61,  62 
Royer   (C),  360 
Rules  of  Marriage  (Plutarch's),  132,  136 

St.  Bartholomew,  massacre  of,  12 

Sainte-Beuve,  12,  77,  357 

St.  Germain,  Dr.  Bertrand  de,  145,  148,  149  n,  154 

St.  Germain,  treaty  of,  142 

St.  John,  Bayle,  77  n. 

St.  Martin,  Jean  de,  353 

St.  Michael,  Order  of,  141,  142,  204 

Sant  Pedro,  Diego  de,  172 

St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  309,  310 

Savile,  George,  359 

Scaliger,  Joseph,  13 

Scaliger,  Julius  Caesar,  88 

Sebonde,  Raimond  de,  124-131,  136 

Self-study,  Montaigne's,  234,  235 

Seneca,  197,  198 

381 


INDEX 

Serres,  Olivier  de,  146 
Sevigne,  Mme.  de,  54 
Shakespeare   (The  Tempest),  63 

(Hamlet),  243,  358 
Shelley,  78,  85 
Siena,  308 
Socrates,  250,  266,  269 

demon  of,  233,  253 
Soldiers,  life  of,  142,  143 
Solitude,  Montaigne  on,  158-165 
Spa,  Baths  of,  302 

Spaniards  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  63,  64 
Stapfer,  Paul,  113 
Sterling,  John,  154  n 
Strozzi,  Marshal,  144,  308 
Style,  an  original,  184 

Montaigne's  literary,  241-244 
Swift,  265,  312 

Tacitus,  193-195 

Talemagne,  40,  42 

Tasso,  311,  312 

Tempest,  The  (Shakespeare),  63 

Terence,  177,  178 

Terrelle,  Juste,  302 

Thirion-Montauban,  M.,  148 

Thoinette   (Montaigne's  daughter),  134,  135 

Thomas,  Simon,  43 

Thou,  De,  76,  77,  207,  208,  328,  329,  348 

Tivoli,  307 

Torture,  Montaigne  on,  53,  54 

Toulouse,  University  of,  43 

Tour  de  Cordouan,  327 

Tour,  Frangois  de  la,  351 

Tower  of  Montaigne,  149-155 

Trachere,  the,  148 

Trans,  Marquis  de,  204 

382 


INDEX 

Travel,  Montaigne's  temper  in,  295-301 

Travels  of  Montaigne,  The ;    discovery  of  MS.  of,  296 

Turnebe  (Turnebus),  A.  de,  34,  126,  127,  i8i 

Vaillac,  Baron  de,  329,  333-335 

Vatican,  Library  of  the,  314 

Venice,  311 

Villani,  172 

Vinet,  £lie,  327 

Virgil,  177,  179,  181,  182 

Water-works,  307 
Will,  Montaigne's  power  of,  252 
Women,  Montaigne  on,  114-117 
Wordsworth,  257,  269 


THE   END 


383 


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